[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 13 (Tuesday, February 7, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Page S766]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE FUNERAL OF CORETTA SCOTT KING

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in a few moments, we will be closing down 
for the evening. But I did want to comment very briefly upon the 
wonderful experience that I and nine other of our colleagues had over 
the course of today as we attended the funeral of Coretta Scott King at 
the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, down right just outside of 
Atlanta.
  We had a bipartisan delegation that left early this morning, joined 
by a House delegation, joined also, as most people know, by the 
President and the First Lady and three prior Presidents, for what was, 
indeed, a memorial service in many ways but, in truth, a great 
celebration for a great woman. She leaves a legacy of leading with 
grace. Few people have ever had the opportunity of knowing someone like 
that. That was reflected in many comments over the course of the day at 
the funeral.
  As a wife, as a mother, as a civil rights leader, Mrs. King joins 
this large pantheon of great Americans whose courage and whose dignity, 
whose boldness, whose tireless pursuit of social justice transformed 
not only a generation but the dreams and expectations of generations to 
follow. Over the course of the statements and having the opportunity to 
circulate among people who attended, the real global impact of this 
woman, as I said, leading by grace, focused on freedom and opportunity 
and social justice, was so apparent.
  Born in April of 1927 on a family farm down in Marion, AL, she grew 
up during the Depression in the segregated South and early on 
experienced firsthand the unfairness and the racial injustice that had 
coursed through American life.
  As a child--and we learned through many stories over the course of 
today--she would walk miles every day to attend a poor, one-room 
elementary school where her neighbors, White neighbors, road the bus in 
comfort to an all-White school that was close by. She was walking 5 
miles a day.
  But as Coretta herself would say in later years, before she was a 
King, she was a Scott, Coretta Scott King. As a Scott growing up in 
segregated Alabama, her parents taught her strength, taught her 
boldness, sharing that wisdom with her. It was this strength translated 
through great dignity over the course of her life that came to define 
her and to radiate from her from the very beginning and throughout her 
life.
  There was much discussion and reflection on her faith, her inate 
strength and graciousness, all of which supported her through times, as 
many of the speakers and presenters today talked about, of 
extraordinary trials and suffering.
  Today, while millions of people around the world watched, there were 
four U.S. Presidents, I believe there were 13 colleagues--14 Senators, 
13 of my colleagues--dozens of Congressmen, clergy, community leaders, 
thousands of admirers, people from around the world, from South Africa, 
who spoke today, also celebrating the life and contributions of Coretta 
Scott King, the first lady of the civil rights movement and, as we 
heard from South Africa, the first international lady of the civil 
rights movement.
  I think all of us who went, and many people who shared this service 
on their televisions today, were humbled by her example. You can't help 
but to be lifted by her spirit. Oprah Winfrey observed yesterday at the 
Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta--and I did have the opportunity to 
share one Martin Luther King Day with the King family and with Coretta 
Scott King; I believe it was 3 years ago, at the Ebenezer Baptist 
Church--that the great Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., often preached 
that Mrs. King, ``leaves us all a better America than the America of 
her childhood.''
  She leaves behind a tremendous legacy and a great challenge to all of 
us; that is, to lead our lives--and very much the thematic today was a 
real celebration but what are we all going to be doing tomorrow? Are 
all our thoughts going to be similar to what her thoughts were the day 
after her husband was assassinated, that bold decision to go up to 
Memphis and to return there 3 days later to be with her people? That as 
we look ahead, how do we translate all this so that we all look to our 
own lives to be led with courage and with grace and with the boldness 
and dignity that she has shown, and to realize the dream to which she 
and her husband devoted their lives; that one day, one day soon, in 
their words, ``this Nation will rise up and live out the true meaning 
of its creed''--``that all men are,'' indeed ``created equal.''

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