What makes Coretta Scott King special is not just that she happened to marry the most famous civil rights leader of the 1960s—the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.—but that she remained an activist long after her husband’s assassination in 1968. An activist as well as an artist, she overcame hardships in her youth to pursue higher education and a career in music. The effects of racial segregation she experienced firsthand growing up in Alabama made her realize how important the fight for civil rights was and made her keen to be a part of the struggle.

Coretta Scott King dedicated her life to the pursuit of civil and human rights for all.

Early Years

Born on April 27, 1927, in Marion, Ala., Coretta Scott King felt the sting of racial discrimination at a young age. While she had to walk several miles to school, her white counterparts traveled to school by bus, according to the New York Times. As a child, King also endured labor in the cotton fields and helped raise the cattle on their farm. Because her father, Obadiah Scott, owned a country store and her mother, Bernice Scott, drove a school bus, her family had more advantages than most blacks in Alabama. Yet they were still poor. Despite this, King excelled in school, graduating as valedictorian of her class at Lincoln Normal School in 1945. The promising pupil then headed off to Antioch College in Ohio to study education and music. After that she left for Boston to attend the New England Conservatory of Music to train to be an opera singer.

Blind Date

As a student in Boston, King received a call from her future husband, Martin Luther King Jr.

He’d obtained her phone number from a mutual friend and called to ask her out. They met for lunch a day later, but Coretta Scott King didn’t like her date’s cheesy pickup lines nor the fact that he was just 5 feet 7. Despite these concerns, she did like the way her date spoke, and he liked her intelligence, the Times reported. The couple continued seeing each other and married on June 18, 1953, at the home of Coretta Scott King’s parents. They would have four children together from 1955 to 1963: Yolanda, Martin III, Dexter and Bernice.

Civil Rights

Although she was mother to four children and arguably the most stable presence in their lives while her husband traveled for the movement, Coretta Scott King also contributed to the civil rights struggle. She put her music training to use and performed a series of “Freedom Concerts” to fundraise for civil rights activism. In addition, King participated in 1955’s Montgomery Bus Boycott, traveled to Ghana in 1957 after the nation won its independence and traveled to India two years later, according to Biography.com. She also dedicated her time getting the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed.

Life After Martin

After Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, Coretta Scott King did not withdraw from the movement but remained active in the fight for civil rights. She appeared at the Poor People’s Campaign in honor of her husband just a few months after his murder. She went on to join the National Organization for Women and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group for which her husband once served as president. In 1980, she was allowed to use the area around her husband’s birthplace in Atlanta for the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change of which she served as CEO and president. In 1986, the first federal holiday recognizing her late husband’s birthday took place. Coretta Scott King played a key role in leading the charge to getting the King holiday established.

Later Years

Coretta Scott King stepped down as head of the King Center in 1995, allowing her son Dexter King to succeed her. She sparked controversy when she called for the exoneration of her husband’s convicted killer, James Earl Ray. While Ray initially admitted to killing King, he later recanted. Ray died in 1998.

In addition to supporting civil rights, Coretta Scott King championed women’s rights, gay rights and apartheid in South Africa. She also befriended other widows whose husbands had been active in the fight for equality, such as Betty Shabazz, wife of Malcolm X, and Myrlie Evers, wife of Medgar Evers. In August 2005, Coretta Scott King had a heart attack and a stroke. She died at the age of 78 on Jan. 30, 2006, after her heart and breathing stopped.