Behind every feminist is a dream…and an amazing woman like Coretta Scott King.

I love the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. I read his biography when I was a clueless 19-year-old white girl and it quickly unveiled the warm and fuzzy filter through which I’d viewed the world while growing up in Portland, Oregon. I wish I followed that biography up with some of the words of Martin Luther King Jr.’s incredibly brilliant, brave and passionate wife, Coretta Scott King, the First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement.

Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul.

-Coretta Scott King

I wish someone had taken my hand and led me to the vault of gifts that Coretta contributed to our country. Did you know that Coretta had the vow ‘to obey her husband’ removed from the ceremony? She was a singer and pianist and incorporated her skills into her work. Coretta stepped up and played a tremendous civil rights leadership role after her husband was assassinated, she was active in the Women’s Movement, she founded The King Center, she served as delegate for the Women’s Strike for Peace Conference in Switzerland, she was an author, she was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame and she was the first African American to lie in the Georgia State Capitol.

Coretta boldly stood up for the rights of her community. The letter she wrote to Congress regarding Jeff Sessions in 1986 was finally made public last year…yes, 31 years later. Here’s a video of Senator Elizabeth Warren reading the letter outside the Senate.

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