The recent death of Coretta Scott King, and the massive public memorial held in her honor, which President George W. Bush attended, marked an end in a phase of Civil Rights History. Coretta Scott King had been the principal force behind the establishment of the federal holiday honoring the life and legacy of her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1986. Yet Coretta King’s death forces today’s proponents of racial justice to ponder serious questions about how Dr. King’s holiday has been subverted from its real political meaning.
Only days before Coretta King’s death, newspapers and the electronic media had widely documented the deep disarray within both the King family and Atlanta’s King Center. In December, 2005, the King Center board, controlled by younger son Dexter King, announced it was considering selling the center for $11 million to the National Park Service. Dexter’s decision immediately provoked public protests from the elder son, Martin Luther King, III, and Bernice King.