A resolution honoring the life of Coretta Scott King and expressing the condolences of the Senate on her passing.

Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the first lady of the civil rights movement--Coretta Scott King. Mrs. King, the widow of the late Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., dedicated her life to sharing Dr. King's quest for social justice and peace.

Although one cannot say enough about her lifelong commitment to the cause of racial and economic equality, it is important to also note that Coretta Scott King was a visionary for women's rights on her own merit. She was the first woman to deliver the Class Day address at Harvard, and the first woman to preach at a statutory service at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. And Mrs. King served as a liaison to international peace and justice organizations even before Dr. King took a public stand in 1967 against United States intervention in the Vietnam war.

As we mourn the passing of Coretta Scott King, we are once again reminded of her quiet and resolute compassion for others. As she once remarked, and continued to demonstrate throughout her long life, Dr. King's dream was equally hers as well. ``I didn't learn my commitment from Martin. We just converged at a certain time.''

Together, their fearless commitment to the civil rights movement shaped and inspired the revolutionary social changes in the United States over the last half-century.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Coretta Scott King were first vaulted to the national stage during the Montgomery bus boycott. Led by Dr. King, the 1955 boycott lasted nearly 13 months and truly ignited the Nation's civil rights movement.

The boycott led to the Supreme Court questioning the legality of the Jim Crow law that mandated the discrimination of African-Americans on the public bus system. And on November 13, 1956, in the landmark case Browder v. Gayle, the Supreme Court banned segregation on buses. It was truly a remarkable victory for the cause of freedom and equality.

Throughout the turbulent decades of the 1950's and 60's, Dr. King's vision helped the Nation form a new and better understanding of itself, one that celebrates its diverse nature and strengthens its commitment to the principles of equality and justice.

Yet one cannot simply overlook the passion and commitment of Mrs. King as her own individual. Throughout her long life, Mrs. King served as an inspirational presence around the world for the values of equality and peace.

Coretta Scott was born April 27, 1927, the middle of three children born to Obadiah and Bernice Scott. She grew up in the two-room house her father built on land that had been owned by the family for three generations. Her exposure to the injustices of segregation were formed early on, as she walked to her one-room school house each day, watching buses full of white children kick up dust as they passed.

During high school, Mrs. King excelled academically and demonstrated a great talent for music. She attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH, where 2 years earlier her older sister, Edythe, had become the first black to enroll. At Antioch, she studied education and music.

In 1953, the young Coretta Scott was preparing for a career in music at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, when she met a young graduate student in philosophy. A year later she and Dr. King, then a young minister from a prominent Atlanta family, were married.

During Dr. King's career, Mrs. King mostly shied away from the prominent spotlight of her husband, balancing motherhood and movement work. She devoted most of her time to raising their four children: Yolanda Denise, born in 1955, Martin Luther III, born in 1957, Dexter Scott, born in 1961, and Bernice Albertine, born in 1963. But she also gained recognition for the ``Freedom Concerts'' she organized, where she lectured, read poetry and sang to raise awareness of and money for the burgeoning civil rights movement.

Upon the tragic assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968, Mrs. King bravely took up the mantle of the civil rights cause. Even before her husband was buried, she marched at the head of the garbage workers he had gone to Memphis to champion.

Over the next few decades, Coretta Scott King gained nationwide interest and admiration for her efforts to establish a national holiday in honor of her husband. By an act of Congress, the first national observance of the holiday took place in 1986. Dr. King's birthday is now marked by annual celebrations in over 100 countries.

During the 1970s, Mrs. King continued to work on behalf of the cause of economic justice. In 1974 she formed the Full Employment Action Council, a broad coalition of over 100 religious, labor, business, civil and women's rights organizations dedicated to a national policy of full employment and equal economic opportunity.

She also helped to found the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non- Violent Social Change in Atlanta, dedicated both to scholarship and to activism.

Over time, Mrs. King also developed her own causes and rhetoric, which were consistent with the vision of her

husband. For example, when she stood in for her husband at the Poor People's Campaign at the Lincoln Memorial on June 19, 1968, she spoke not just of his vision for social justice, but also of gender and racial equality. She called upon American women ``to unite and form a solid block of women power to fight the three great evils of racism, poverty and war.''

Mrs. King also dedicated herself to the cause of peace, traveling throughout the world on goodwill missions to Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia. In 1983, she marked the 20th anniversary of the historic March on Washington by leading a gathering of more than 800 human rights organizations, the Coalition of Conscience, in the largest demonstration the Capital City had seen up to that time. And in 1993, Mrs. King was invited by President Clinton to witness the historic handshake between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chairman Yassir Arafat at the signing of the Middle East peace accords.

Mrs. King also envisioned plans for a memorial dedicated to her husband. Recently, I cosponsored a bill that approved funding for such a memorial. This memorial will be the first on the National Mall in honor of a person of color. It is my hope that this memorial will continue to remind the Nation, and the world, of the powerful words of hope Dr. King expressed here in Washington, DC, more than 40 years ago.

Throughout her life, Mrs. King was seen as an inspirational figure around the world, someone who truly personified the ideals to which she and Dr. King pledged their lives.

But although our country has come a long way since the days when our country first met the legendary Coretta Scott King and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., we still have much to accomplish. We must steadfastly protect the advances already made in the fight for social equality, and also further those advances in the years ahead.

We owe the legacy of Coretta Scott King, and that of her remarkable husband, the late Martin Luther King, Jr., no less.

Mr. President, today, I rise to pay tribute to the life of a great American, Coretta Scott King, who passed away last night at the age of 78.

Mrs. King, Alabama born, was educated in Ohio and Boston. It was while attending the New England Conservatory of Music that she met a young man from Atlanta, Martin Luther King, Jr. She knew from their first date that Martin Luther King, Jr., was brilliant and exceptional, a born leader.

When they were married at her home in Alabama in 1953, Reverend King's father, who was a pastor, performed the ceremony. But at Coretta's request, he omitted the bride's vow to obey her husband. That was pretty bold at that time. It was highly unusual, but it provided a glimpse of the strength and independence Coretta Scott King would demonstrate throughout her life.

Coretta Scott King joined her husband in the fight for equality and justice. She believed that was our Nation's promise to every citizen, but it had too long been denied to African Americans. She was Dr. King's constant partner in the struggle for civil rights. She marched alongside him and used her talent as a singer to raise money for their cause while raising their children and keeping their family together in the face of constant threats and a bombing by the Ku Klux Klan.

After Dr. King's assassination 38 years ago, Coretta Scott King might have quietly slipped out of public life, but she chose to continue his work. She created the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta in search of civil rights and equality for everyone in America. Coretta Scott King never lost faith in her husband's dream of peace and mutual respect. I had the honor of being able to identify a courthouse in the city of Newark that was being built as the Martin Luther King, Jr., Courthouse. I called Coretta Scott King to be certain that this was an acceptable item in the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King. We were pleased to do it, and that courthouse stands today as a reminder to everybody who passes in that area, everybody who lives in that region, that Martin Luther King was the great leader that he was, and his wife followed closely in his footsteps. She never wavered from Dr. King's commitment to achieve change through nonviolent means.

Dr. King lived long enough to see the passage of landmark legislation that removed legal barriers to equality. His wife lived to see more African Americans and Latino Americans elected as public officials and serving as Secretary of State for the United States,

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the military, and CEOs of companies such as American Express, Kmart, and Time-Warner.

Although some of the legal barriers to equality have fallen, economic barriers remain. At the time of his assassination, Dr. King was beginning to focus on economic justice. Today, 38 years later, we still have not achieved his dream of economic justice. That promise rings hollow today for millions of hard-working Americans. It rings hollow for the people who clean the rooms in the big hotels but cannot afford a decent place to live. It rings hollow for garment workers, those who work in the factories over sewing machines and needles and the pressing machines, whose children wear hand-me-down clothes. They work making beautiful clothing, but they cannot afford to clothe their own children in many cases. And farm workers who grow and harvest the crops, they often cannot afford healthy food for their families.

Last year, Hurricane Katrina revealed to the whole world the stark poverty that still afflicts our Nation. The greatest majority of the poor people we saw stranded in New Orleans were African Americans. In the past 5 years, the poverty level among African Americans has increased. More than one-third of all Black children in this country live in poverty. That suggests something in the long-term that is not good for them, nor for country.

I had the privilege yesterday of going to a school in Patterson, NJ, that I attended many years ago. Patterson, NJ, is a minority city of African Americans and new immigrants. I looked at the faces of those children. We had a demonstration by the band. My wife and I were there. In the faces of those kids you could see hope, and you could see a desire to have a chance at life. It is a terrible condition that prohibits, many times, their opportunity to get an education, to have the kind of nutrition they need to grow healthy bodies and strong minds. The overall poverty rate among African Americans is almost three times as high as non-Hispanic Whites. That is not economic justice, Mr. President.

The great promise of America has always been that if you work hard, you can build a better life for your family. Poverty is a national disgrace in this wealthy country we inhabit. Dr. King and Coretta Scott King knew that. They believed America could do better. They loved this country for its promise of liberty and justice for all, and in holding us to that promise, they appealed to the best nature of the American spirit.

Mr. President, I find it fitting that on the very day Coretta Scott King passed away, the Smithsonian Institute announced its intention to build a museum of Black history on the National Mall. That is where it belongs; it belongs in the founding elements of our country, to demonstrate the contribution that has been made by African Americans in our society. That museum will be just a few blocks from the Lincoln Memorial, where her husband delivered his famous ``I have a dream'' speech during the 1964 march on Washington. It is an appropriate place--a place where President Abraham Lincoln is remembered for his fight against slavery and the abuse of the people who were kept in this condition.

For almost four decades, Coretta Scott King has helped keep that dream alive. Now we must all do the same.

Mr. President, I rise today to remember an extraordinary and courageous woman, Coretta Scott King.

Coretta Scott King was one of the most influential women leaders in our world. She entered the public stage in 1955 as wife of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and as a leading participant in the American civil rights movement.

Born and raised in Marion, AL, Coretta Scott graduated valedictorian from Lincoln High School. She received a B.A. in music and education from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH, and then went on to study concert singing at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music, where she earned a degree in voice and violin. While in Boston she met Martin Luther King, Jr. who was then studying for his doctorate in systematic theology at Boston University. They were married on June 18, 1953, and in September 1954 took up residence in Montgomery, AL, with Coretta Scott King assuming the many functions of pastor's wife at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

During Dr. King's career, Mrs. King devoted most of her time to raising their four children. However, she balanced mothering and work, speaking before church, civic, college, fraternal and peace groups. She conceived and performed a series of favorably-reviewed Freedom Concerts which combined prose and poetry narration with musical selections and functioned as fundraisers for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the direct action organization of which Dr. King served as first president.

After Dr. King's assassination in 1968, Mrs. King devoted much of her energy and attention to developing programs and building the Atlanta- based Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change as a living memorial to her husband's life and dream. For 27 years, Mrs. King devoted her life to developing the King Center. As founding President, Chair, and Chief Executive Officer, she dedicated herself to providing local, national and international programs that have trained tens of thousands of people in Dr. King's philosophy and methods; she guided the creation and housing of the largest archives of documents from the civil rights movement; and, perhaps her greatest legacy after establishing the King Center itself, Mrs. King spearheaded the massive educational and lobbying campaign to establish Dr. King's birthday as a national holiday. In 1983, an act of Congress instituted the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday Commission, which she chaired for its duration. And in January 1986, Mrs. King oversaw the first legal holiday in honor of her husband--a holiday which has come to be celebrated by millions of people world-wide and, in some form, in over 100 countries.

Coretta Scott King carried the message of nonviolence around the world. She led goodwill missions to many countries in Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia. She spoke at many of history's most massive peace and justice rallies. She was the first woman to deliver the class day address at Harvard, and the first woman to preach at a statutory service at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

In 1974 Mrs. King formed a broad association of over 100 religious, labor, business, civil and women's rights organizations dedicated to a national policy of full employment and equal economic opportunity, as co-chair of the Full Employment Action Council. In 1983, she brought together more than 800 human rights organizations to form the Coalition of Conscience, sponsors of the 20th anniversary march on Washington, until then the largest demonstration in our Nation's capital. In 1988, she reconvened the Coalition of Conscience for the 25th anniversary of the March on Washington. In preparation for the Reagan-Gorbachev talks, in 1988 she served as head of the U.S. delegation of Women for a Meaningful Summit in Athens, Greece; and in 1990, as the USSR was redefining itself, Mrs. King was coconvener of the Soviet-American Women's Summit in Washington, DC.

Mrs. King received honorary doctorates from over 60 colleges and universities; authored three books and a nationally-syndicated column; and served on, and helped found, dozens of organizations, including the Black Leadership Forum, the National Black Coalition for Voter Participation, and the Black Leadership Roundtable.

On a very personal note, I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. King on a number of occasions, both within my great State of Georgia as well as outside of our State. Most notably, I have been to a number of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Day celebrations at Ebenezer Baptist Church and was there last year, which happened to be the last time that Ms. King was there. She was unable to be there this year.

She was a remarkable lady in that, in spite of her high profile relative to the civil rights movement, as well as since Dr. King's death, she remained a very humble, a very personable, a very congenial lady who had a great sense of humor. Certainly during the time of the civil rights movement, this lady was undoubtedly one of the most admired women in the world because of what she saw her husband going through.

She was loyal and steadfast in the support of her husband. She obviously loved her husband. She loved her family until her death last night. Her legacy will live on for generations, generations and generations to come.

Coretta Scott King worked tirelessly to make a better world. History will judge that she did. We mourn her passing.

Mr. President, in 1968, I was a law student at Georgetown University here in Washington, DC. It was a tumultuous year, and I recall sitting in the library working for my class assignments when a law professor walked in and said: I would like all of you students who are second- and third-year law students to come outside. We walked outside, and he said: We need to ask for your help. The District of Columbia is in an uproar. With the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, there are riots all over our Nation's Capital and many cities across the country, and our legal system has broken down. They have arrested people for a variety of charges and have filled up the DC jails. They have no room for them and no attorneys to represent them. We would like to ask you as a law student to walk across the street to the DC courts and provide some legal advice to the people who are being arrested.

I couldn't believe that as a law student they would ask me to serve as a lawyer, but it was an emergency situation.

As I went over there and saw the DC courts in turmoil over the uproar and the riots, if you will, in the streets of the District of Columbia, I reflected on that terrible year and all that we had been through. Dr. Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy--it was a year no one will ever forget.

I did my part and recall shortly afterwards watching as the television was filled with the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King. I can recall his casket being drawn by a team of mules to his final resting place. I can recall his brave wife walking in the front of the line behind him.

Many of us still recall when Jackie Kennedy faced that same awful burden with the assassination of her husband, John Kennedy, the exceptional courage she showed under what must have been the most stressful and terrible moment of her life.

Coretta Scott King showed that same courage that day, leading the followers of Dr. Martin Luther King to his final resting place. She could have easily retired from public life at that moment and become honored in her own right for having given so much to this country, but she did not. She decided to carry on his legacy, and she led a public life from that point forward in his memory.

The strength we saw on the day of his burial was the strength that continued until her last moment of life a few hours ago. We were all saddened this morning to wake up to the news of the death of Coretta Scott King, a champion of justice and human rights. We honor her memory and send our deep condolences to her family.

A few days ago, Martin Luther King, her son, spoke at Mayor Daley's Martin Luther King breakfast in Chicago, IL. He did an exceptional job. He spoke to us about the challenges his mother faced even in her illness and told us about the continued commitment of his family to civil rights.

Because of her deep humility, there is a tendency to think of Coretta Scott King as her husband's supporter. In fact, as Dr. King himself made clear, she was his indispensable partner. Listen to what Dr. King told an interviewer in 1967. Speaking of Mrs. King, he said:

I never will forget [that] the first discussion we had when

we met was the whole question of racial injustice and

economic injustice and the question of peace. In her college

days, she had been actively engaged in movements dealing with

these problems.

And then he added:

I must admit, I wish I could say, to satisfy my masculine

ego, that I led her down this path; but I must say we went

down together, because she was as actively involved and

concerned when we met as she is now.

For more than 50 years, Mrs. King called America toward greater justice and equality. She spoke with dignity and a quiet authority that challenged us to fulfill our American obligation to create a more perfect union by embracing equal rights and genuine economic and social justice for all Americans, regardless of race, religion, gender, national background, or sexual orientation.

Coretta Scott King was the driving force behind the establishment of the Martin Luther King, Jr., national holiday, for which I was proud to vote, and of the construction of the King Center in Atlanta which I visited with Congressman John Lewis. Yet she reminded us that the best way to honor her husband's legacy was to devote our lives to his work.

It is perhaps no accident that as Coretta Scott King laid her head down for the last time, it was the very day that a decision was made to locate the new Museum of African-American History and Culture near the Lincoln Memorial where her husband delivered his immortal ``I Have a Dream'' speech. It was a dream they shared and to which they both dedicated their lives.

Now Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King, Jr., rest together in eternal peace, and it is up to us to keep that dream alive.

Mr. President, I wish to offer some remarks on our loss of Mrs. Coretta Scott King, who has passed away at the age of 78. I join my colleagues in cosponsoring and supporting S. Res. 362 to honor the life of and express the condolences of the Senate on her passing.

Coretta Scott King was born April 27, 1927, on a farm in Heiberger, AL, to Obadiah, Obie, and Bernice McMurry Scott. Though her family owned the land, it was often a hard life. All the children had to pick cotton during the Great Depression to help the family make ends meet.

Graduating from Lincoln Normal School in Marion, AL, at the top of her class in 1945, Coretta went to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH. After graduation, she moved to Boston, MA, where she met Martin Luther King, Jr. They were married in 1953 on the lawn of her parents' house and with the ceremony performed by King's father. Coretta King received a degree in voice and violin at the New England Conservatory, then moved with her husband to Montgomery, AL, in September 1954 after he was named pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Together, they had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King, and Bernice Albertine King.

Mrs. King received honorary degrees from many institutions including Princeton University and Bates College. She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a noted African-American women's sorority.

The King family was front and center to one of the most turbulent times of the 20th century. Just 2 weeks after the birth of her first child, Rosa Parks was arrested on a Montgomery bus, helping spark what would develop into the modern civil rights movement that would be led by her husband. The struggles that followed included a narrow escape from death in 1956 when Mrs. King and her daughter were home when a bomb exploded at the family's residence--her husband was speaking at Rev. Ralph Abernathy's First Baptist Church at the time.

Mrs. King later put together a series of Freedom Concerts that combined poetry, narration, and music to highlight the movement and also raise funds for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1962, she served as a Women's Strike for Peace delegate to the 17- nation Disarmament Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

Notably, she preceded her husband by 2 years in opposing the Vietnam War,

addressing a 1965 antiwar rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, while also serving as a liaison to international peace and justice organizations.

Over the years, she was active in preserving the memory of her husband and in other political issues. After her husband was assassinated in 1968, she began attending a commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to mark her husband's birth every January 15th and fought for years to make it a national holiday, a quest that was realized in 1986, when the first Martin Luther King Day was celebrated and which we just recently celebrated 2 weeks ago.

In her own right, Mrs. King was vocal and influential on many issues, including opposing apartheid; opposing capital punishment; opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq; and advocating for the rights of women, lesbians and gays, as well as AIDS/HIV prevention.

I was disturbed to hear of Mrs. King's hospitalization in August 2005 after suffering a stroke and a mild heart attack but encouraged by her progress in regaining some of her speech and continued physiotherapy at home. I understand that on January 14, 2006, Mrs. King made her last public appearance in Atlanta at a dinner honoring her husband's memory and that, fittingly, she will be buried in Atlanta next to her husband at The King Center.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King were remarkable people who led remarkable lives. Our Nation is a better place for their actions, and they will continue to live in our collective memory for many years to come. I wish to offer her family and friends my deepest condolences.