Local leaders mourn Coretta King's death

Cape Girardeau residents mourned the passing of Coretta Scott King Tuesday.

"Now that she is gone I can only be saddened. Tears have come to my eyes very often today," said Debra Mitchell-Braxton, founder of the city's annual King memorial breakfast.

"She inspired a lot of women to persevere. She taught her children to keep the dream alive," Mitchell-Braxton said. "Now that she's gone it draws a close to a segment of history we will have to try hard to hang on to," Mitchell-Braxton said.

The wife of the slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. died Tuesday in Atlanta at the age of 78. She had been recovering from a serious stroke and heart attack suffered last August. Just two weeks ago, she made her first public appearance in a year on the eve of her late husband's birthday.

She carried the mantle of non-violent social change for 39 years following her husband's death. Her oldest son, Martin Luther King III, visited Cape Girardeau on Jan. 24 and was optimistic about his mother's condition, saying the family expected a full recovery. But last Thursday she was transported to an alternative medicine center in Mexico where she died from respiratory failure. Doctors said she suffered from advanced ovarian cancer.

During his visit, King talked about his mother's influence. "I'm very thankful that my mom taught me to be the best Martin I could be, as an individual," he said. He said it was her strength that gave him the courage to blaze his own trail without fear of living in his father's shadow.

King also described his mother's strength the day his father was shot. He said he ran to her room after seeing the news on television, that she comforted the children before flying to be with her husband. He said his mother did not let grief stop her from continuing the civil rights movement. Scott King marched at the head of 50,000 people in Memphis a mere four days after her husband's death.

Former Cape Girardeau NAACP activist Juanita Spicer, who saw Dr. King speak in Milwaukee where she also participated in sit-ins, said Scott King was an important figure in her life. "I guess the thing I've been thinking most today is how courageous Coretta was when her husband died. She did such a good job raising the children, always working with the civil rights movement," she said.

Pastor Bobby Dean of St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church in Charleston, Mo., said he will address King's death during his Sunday sermon and challenges others to do the same. "She was the original mother of the civil rights movement, and for every stone or rock that was thrown at Dr. King during his marches, she had the chance to get hit as well," said Dean. "You know, Dr. King wrote his own eulogy. It was his last message read at his funeral, and in that eulogy he told his wife to say he was a drum major. Well, Coretta was the wife of a drum major marching step for step and stride for stride."

Mitchell-Braxton said King's death feels like the end of an era, coming so soon after the death of fellow civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks last month and Congresswoman Shirley Chis-holm in 2005.