The World should pause a moment and note the passing of a truly great woman, great humanitarian and a great statesman. The death of Coretta Scott King marks not only the loss of the spouse and support companion of an important national icon, Martin Luther King, Jr., but of a person whose poise, courage, intellect and compassion contributed to the advancement of the Civil Rights Movement in her own right. Not unlike Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Coretta Scott King demonstrated strength following the assassination of her husband and exemplified the profound faith in the principles for which her husband's life was sacrificed. She gave us hope that the death of the man would not diminish the vitality of the ideas and principles. We could believe that Martin had shown us the right path, and that Coretta would quietly reassure us in continuing along that path toward freedom and equality. Along with Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King exemplified for us the sheer virtue in accepting and believing in the essential goodness and equality of humanity.
Though there were many in life and especially in government whose arrogance, bigotry, venality and sheer greed for money or power would seek to obscure and bury the principles of freedom and equality, as they had buried Kennedy and King, Coretta Scott King and her determined presence and graceful smile let us know that these men may have power and influence, but they were still wrong. We clung to the belief that the great majority of American people, and people throughout the world, understood on a basic level that humanity and the basic spirit of equality would not be so easily extinguished and would ultimately prevail.
To be sure, the events of the past decade must have been difficult for Mrs. King to bear. It must have been heartrending to see the Voting Rights Act diluted and weakened so as to permit denial of the poor and people of color access to the polls, antidiscrimination laws emasculated by GOP appointed judges hellbent upon denying victims of bigotry and racism access to the courts, and laws enacted to strip citizens of basic civil rights while authorizing the indefinite imprisonment and torture of human beings. In the end, her heart, so full of compassion, simply broke or wore out and she has left us.
Perhaps it is a blessing that Coretta Scott King did not live to see the installation of Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court. His addition may well serve to entrench the forces of regression and repression in this country that have fought to resurrect barriers to a free and democratic America that Dr. King showed us how to tear down. We should be thankful for the era that Rev. and Mrs. King helped us build. For in this new "America of the GOP" going forward, people of color and the poor are no longer assured access to the polls or equality of representation, poor people can be stripped of their rights, their possessions and their lives without due process, and women will have the right to control their own bodies and destinies only to the extent that white male controlled legislatures and courts give them permission. Men will be judged, not by the content of their character, but by the size of their wallets and the nature of their high level political connections.
Progress is seldom a steady process, and there will always be points of hiatus and regression. We quite obviously are in a period of major regression. National leaders of today appear to have as little regard for the truth as they do for the rights of American citizens and the Constitution upon which the nation was founded. We are in an era of Orwellian doublespeak. The Patriot Act is perhaps the least patriotic legislation in many decades, the Clean Skies Act gives huge corporations license to befoul the air, and "national security" is used as an excuse to strip away the very security vested in the principles of democracy embedded in the national Constitution. Though our national "leaders" give us no basis or reason for hope, we can still look to the spirit of ancestral guides and elders, including Coretta Scott King, for inspiration and faith that this too shall pass, and we will one day in the future regain our footing and courage and begin anew on the path to true freedom, equality and democracy worthy of a great nation. It is a tenet of my African and native American ancestry that our ancestors live on and guide us as long as there is someone living who remembers them. Let all of us who believe in truth, equality and humanity never forget Coretta Scott King, so long as we shall live. Remember.
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