[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 18 (Tuesday, February 14, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    HONORING THE LIFE AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF MRS. CORETTA SCOTT KING

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                     HON. C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 1, 2006

  Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Mr. Speaker, as we celebrate the start of Black 
History Month with recognizing the many, many great deeds of African 
Americans, we also mourn the loss of an icon for people of all races--
Mrs. Coretta Scott King. Mrs. King was one of our most influential 
black woman leaders in the world today.
  The ``first lady'' of the civil rights movement was born Coretta 
Scott in Heiberger, Alabama. She was raised on the family farm of her 
parents where she was exposed to the injustices of a segregated 
society.
  Mrs. King excelled at her studies, particularly music, and was 
valedictorian of her graduating class at Lincoln High School. She 
graduated in 1945 and received a scholarship to Antioch College in 
Yellow Springs, Ohio.
  As an undergraduate, she took an active interest in the civil rights 
movement; she joined the Antioch chapter of the NAACP, and the 
college's Race Relations and Civil Liberties Committees. She graduated 
from Antioch with a B.A. in music and education and won a scholarship 
to study concert singing at New England Conservatory of Music in 
Boston, Massachusetts.
  In Boston she met a young theology student, Martin Luther King, Jr., 
and her life was changed forever.
  Mr. Speaker, Mrs. King has been described as quiet, steady, and 
courageous and while all of that may be true let it be noted to add 
steadfast and certainly noble.
  Mrs. King was a serious thinker, a committed activist, a talented 
musician and an outspoken woman whose influence and activism extended 
well beyond the career of her famous husband.
  Mrs. King undoubtedly became a symbol of racial equality for all 
Americans. For a woman of her stature, rearing four little children 
when there was civil unrest, and to have suffered the loss of her 
husband sent a clear message to this Nation that the movement was too 
powerful to stop and must go on.
  Just like the late Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy, Mrs. Coretta Scott King 
showed us how to meet personal crisis with courage, and then how to 
transcend crisis with victory.
  Although, I had never had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. King, I too 
share her husband's vision of peace and brotherhood as a steady theme 
that should be heard all across this Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, history has a way of placing women like Coretta Scott 
King in the shadows of their powerful husbands but it is time we 
remember them as more than civil-rights-movement wives and widows.
  I once heard someone say that behind every good man stands a good 
woman, but I say to you and to this Nation that beside every great man 
stands an even greater woman.
  Mr. Speaker, her's was a remarkable life, and along the way she 
helped improve the lives of millions. While we mourn her lose, we must 
celebrate her legacy--now recognized with that of her husband.

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