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Mourners Pay Last Respects to Civil Rights Activist Coretta Scott King
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=10D7122:3919ACA Mrs. King's body
was taken in a horse-drawn carriage to Georgia State Capitol





Coretta Scott King during The Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual
Commemorative Service in the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Heritage
Sanctuary, in Atlanta (File photo - Jan. 17, 2005)

Mourners are lining up to pay respects to Coretta Scott King, the
widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Mrs. King's
body was taken in a horse-drawn carriage to the Capitol of the
southern state of Georgia Saturday. Mrs. King, who died Monday at age
78, is to lie in state before her funeral on Tuesday.

Hundreds of people lined the streets as an 18th-century carriage
pulled by two horses brought the casket of Coretta Scott King to the
Georgia state Capitol. Mrs. King is the first black person and the
first woman to lie in state under the Gold Dome of Georgia's Capitol
building.

During a brief ceremony, Governor Sonny Perdue called Mrs. King one of
Georgia's most beloved citizens, as he offered condolences to the King
family.







>From right: Mary Perdue,  Gov. Sonny Perdue, Atlanta Mayor Shirley
Franklin, Dexter Scott King, Rev. Bernice King, Martin Luther King III
and Yolanda King"She proudly bore the torch of her husband's legacy of
advancing freedom and social justice across our nation and around the
world," said Sonny Perdue. "And she, after Martin's death, made it her
legacy, as well. Through the work of the King Center that she founded,
Mrs. King carried forth a message of peace across all nations, and,
today, her loss is mourned across all nations, as well as here in her
native home of Georgia."

The honors accorded Mrs. King by Georgia's governor were in sharp
contrast to the way the death of her husband, civil rights leader
Martin Luther King Jr., was treated after his 1968 assassination.
Then-Georgia Governor Lester Maddox did not attend the Reverend King's
funeral, and refused to let his body lie in honor at the state
Capitol.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, a black woman, noted progress in race
relations that has occurred in the Southern United States and Mrs.
King's role in facilitating change. "For I would not be in this place
as mayor of Atlanta had Coretta not lived and fought for our right as
African Americans to be here," said Shirley Franklin.

After the viewing at the Capitol, Mrs. King's casket will lie at the
Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her husband preached in the years
before his death. A funeral service will be held Tuesday at a suburban
Atlanta church where the Kings' youngest daughter, Bernice, is a
minister.

 


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