My Life, My Love, My Legacy

by Coretta Scott King

  With so much at stake, I trained my efforts, laser-like, on the 1984 presidential election, looking for a Democratic candidate who could replace Reagan.

  Black leaders were all over the political map about how to accomplish this goal. One of the hottest issues among African American leaders was Jesse Jackson’s announced bid for the presidency. Jesse’s run earned so many strong positives and sharp negatives that it split black leadership, which, because of its divergent interests, cannot always act as one monolithic voice. The so-called Atlanta Mafia, along with then speaker of the California State Assembly Willie Brown, and mayors Coleman Young of Detroit, Wilson Goode of Philadelphia, and Tom Bradley of Los Angeles, all supported Walter Mondale, while many other influential blacks supported Jesse. The key issue, however, is that although we took separate routes, our goal was the same: improving the lot of black America.

  On the one hand, Jesse’s run perfected the politics of inclusion, a vision Martin and I had always cherished. In his Rainbow Coalition were farmers, Appalachian poor, Asians, peace activists, Native Americans, Third World activists, unionists, the elderly, and gay rights activists, as well as African Americans. Jesse’s run would give more blacks experience in running campaigns, and would motivate others to run. On the other hand, there was resentment among some elected black officials that, while they had stood for election in their respective districts and waited their turn to have political influence, here was a man who had never run for anything being perceived as the singular voice of black America. In other words, in this election year there would be only one political broker for black America. Martin had often warned against hoisting one person onto a pedestal as a single spokesman for blacks. The press had done exactly this to him, and he paid for it with his life.

  My own reason for not supporting Jesse had nothing to do with the reports of conflicts that have been published in the press and many books. These reports of Jesse projecting himself as the “new King” and as the claimant to my husband’s mantle of leadership did not concern me. There was never any question in my mind as to where my husband’s mantle rested. It rested with all his followers, who could represent what Martin stood for with honor, dignity, and integrity. Also, as Martin often said, I “was only a heartbeat away” from his work in the movement; I would not abdicate to anyone else my responsibility to aid in the shaping and maintaining of his legacy.

  Jesse was no stranger to me. I had known him for years. When he started Operation Breadbasket in Chicago for the SCLC in 1967, I shared with Martin how effective I thought he was. After Martin died, I began hearing criticism from others in the movement about Jesse. I was told he was obsessed with recognition; when you work with him, people told me, he has to be the star; everything is all about Jesse at all times. Over the years, I treated the reports of Jesse’s self-promotion strategies as hearsay, but I started watching him and eventually came to see that what others were saying had some basis. Each time I attempted to go deep enough to reflect on Jesse’s reputed exploitation of my husband before he was even in the grave, I grew so pained that I could not put my true feelings into words.

  I tried to encourage Jesse. “You are so talented, highly intelligent, and handsome,” I told him. “You have everything going for you. You just need to get yourself out of the way and allow God to use you.”

  Jesse didn’t seem upset by what I was telling him, but it didn’t seem to get through to him, either. I felt troubled about him; I felt that he needed to stop being so self-centered and to stop using people. Leadership is not about that. Leadership requires serving others without regard to public recognition. And I was concerned because I knew the movement needed strong male moral leaders to help fill the vacuum created by Martin’s death.

  Finally, I said to myself, “Maybe God will work with him and through him, and there could be a conversion, a miraculous conversion, and things will work out.”

  Jesse went on to develop quite a following. He knows how to use the media like few people I have ever met. At a major meeting of nationally acclaimed black leaders in 1983, he laid out his case for running for the presidency, and Andy and I were the only ones in the room who did not raise our voices in support. I did not try to hide my decision; I stood up and spoke forthrightly. I told the group that while Jesse was creative, articulate, and intelligent, I believed his run would be divisive. There would be a number of Democratic candidates, and this would make it more difficult for the front-runner to attain a clear majority. Again, I had one goal in mind: I wanted to see the defeat of Ronald Reagan, who had done so much damage already to the gains we had made through the activism of the 1960s. “I see a shift backward,” I told the room. “We don’t need four more years of Reagan. I understand that blacks have to get used to running, and white people have to get used to seeing them run, but the greater good right now is the defeat of Reagan. Besides, we all know that the country at this time is not going to vote for a black president, so why, with so much damage already done, why not keep our eyes on the prize of unseating Reagan?”

  Needless to say, Andy and I took an unpopular position—with painful results. At the Democratic National Convention, Andy, who was then the mayor of Atlanta, was on the floor addressing a caucus of African American delegates, attempting to explain a technical point in one of the convention planks, but before he could finish, someone booed. Slowly the booing grew louder. As I viewed on television the heavy-handed treatment Andy was receiving, it really pained me. It was not necessarily the volume of the booing as the meaning of it that hurt so much. I hate to admit it, but the hostile sounds reverberating through the convention hall brought me to tears. While I sat there I thought, “Now that is a crying shame. We can’t let Andy be booed like that.”

  As I continued to watch Andy’s ordeal, I fleshed out what my response should be. I paced back and forth, thinking aloud, “We can’t let this picture stand. Andy is loved by black people all over the world. This is not the way he should be coming into America’s living rooms.”

  When I saw that other leaders were not rushing to Andy’s defense, I decided I could not remain silent. I asked for an invitation to address the black delegates, a group comprising mostly Jesse Jackson supporters. They were the same ones who had unceremoniously booed Andy.

  I knew what lay ahead for me during my speech. Throughout my adult life, I had put myself in harm’s way for my people. I had never shied away from danger, seen or unseen. But the thought of facing down my own race unnerved me momentarily. Those you love the most can always hurt you the most. I was disturbed by the thought processes of those I would be facing, because I understood that the hostile speech that had rained down on Andy was a kind of violence. It can pierce the heart and the soul. I also thought about those who were priming the delegates to pour out their hateful speech, the kind of people who throw rocks and hide their hands. They might have marched with Martin, but they did not practice what he preached. Somehow they did not internalize what Martin always said: “We must learn to disagree without being disagreeable.”

  The next morning, I walked to the podium to face the convention’s caucus of black delegates, and began to give a detailed chronology of Andy’s career and sacrifices—not just for blacks, but for all people. “Here is a man who paid his dues, not only for us, but for future generations. He has never betrayed our trust.”

  Unfortunately, I didn’t make it very far into my remarks before the booing started. I tried to continue. I thought about Andy, about all he stood for, and I couldn’t fight back the tears. I did something then that I had never done: I broke down in public, in front of the delegates and before the TV cameras that were beaming my remarks to thousands of viewers. Somehow, I was not ashamed of my tears. They purged my hurt and my pain, and in one of my weakest moments, I felt renewed strength.

  Seeing my condition, NAACP leader Hazel Dukes called to me, “Mrs. King, Mrs. King, come on, sit down.” She thought I was overcome and wanted to spare me any future pain. But I wiped my eyes, brac
ed my shoulders, and started again. I did not stop until I had finished talking about how Andy had fought the good fight for all of us, and deserved respect. I finished saying what I had to say and left the podium. As I returned to my seat, I heard applause following me.

  I understand from people who were backstage at the hall that Jesse could have primed his people not to be rude, or he could have stopped the booing once it started. But his strategy, I was told, was to let the anger build and then to step out and clean things up, making himself look good on camera.

  I soon healed from the ordeal, and felt stronger because I had fought for Andy, rather than hide so as to protect myself. Once again, I saw a premise working that I didn’t like but had learned to accept: often you can go out on a limb, and when you are attacked, few people will come to your rescue if it means crawling out on the limb with you. But that’s all a part of what’s involved in leadership.

  As expected, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush won handily over Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro. One of the casualties of the election year was the idea of a woman on the ticket of one of the two major parties. Ferraro was the first woman in the United States to be nominated on one of the tickets by a major party. How long, I wondered, would it be before a woman on the ticket was seen as an asset rather than a liability?

  As hard as we had worked to unseat Reagan, the ending was like walking in a daze.

  Even worse news came in the immediate wake of the election. Daddy King died on November 11, 1984.

  * * *

  THE DEATH OF Daddy King quickly overshadowed whatever meaning politics had for our family that year. He had lived for ten years after the murder of Mama King, but I still believe Daddy King died of loneliness. He was also weak after being operated on for prostate cancer, which drained his energy. In his later years, Daddy King wanted his grandchildren to be with him as much as possible and take turns staying with him. He had a housekeeper during the daytime, but at night, he’d be by himself. While his grandchildren adored him, it was hard for them because they were young and thought that staying with him was too confining. I kept telling them, “You know Daddy King isn’t going to be with us forever, so can’t you just for this time give him as much attention as possible?” They scheduled the time, but periodically somebody wouldn’t show up, and then Daddy King would feel rejected. We could have gotten someone to stay with him, but he didn’t want that; he wanted his family. And I suppose he felt that no one had time for him and he didn’t want to be in the way.

  He had started having more attacks in which his heart would start beating fast, and he had to be rushed to the emergency room. In October 1984 a cardiologist at Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital confided to Christine, Daddy King’s only surviving child, that he did not have long to live.

  So, early on a Sunday morning that October, Christine called me about Daddy King’s condition. I readied myself to go to the hospital and called all my kids to meet me there, except Yolanda, who was in New York. When I arrived, I could tell the doctors were very nervous about his prognosis. Dr. Bernard J. Bridges, a friend of the family, was there. He was a King Center board member and had also treated Martin. When I entered Daddy King’s room, I felt his hand. It was cold.

  He said, “Coretta, I think I’m dying. I hate to leave you all, but I think I’m going to have to go.”

  I squeezed his hand. “Well, you know you always told us that everything would be all right, so everything is going to be all right.”

  I and many members of the family gathered in the waiting room, forming a circle and holding hands. Isaac Sr. said, “In times like these, this family always prays.” He then asked Daddy King’s grandson Derek, a preacher, to pray. I had Yolanda on the phone. I told her we were getting ready to pray for Daddy King and I asked if she would like to join us. As he prayed, Derek kept breaking down. After he finished, we sat, immobilized, awaiting the worst news. Suddenly a smiling Dr. Bridges dashed in and made a startling announcement: “I don’t understand what happened, but his heartbeat has returned to normal.”

  Isaac Sr. said, “You know, a miracle has taken place. We just finished praying.”

  We were overjoyed and stunned at the same time. We weren’t ready for good news. Of course we were happy, but our emotions were all geared up with preparing ourselves for the inevitable, and the surprising news pushed us into a state of shock.

  As people of faith, however, perhaps we shouldn’t have been so surprised. We had just prayed for Daddy King’s health to be returned, and before our eyes, we were seeing the power of prayer in action.

  All of a sudden, we heard somebody down the hall bawling loudly. We rushed to see who it was, and found it was Dr. Bridges, who had broken down crying. I guess the tension had built up in him so much that he couldn’t hold it. Here he was, the doctor, trying to save his friend, and it had happened. We hugged him, united in a moment of gratitude and spiritual understanding. Then I rushed back in to see Daddy King—and what a turnaround! He was sitting up, smiling. “I think I’m going to be around for a little while,” he told me. “But not much longer.”

  “Dad,” I said, “You don’t know how long God has for you to be here.” But he smiled and repeated himself. “I won’t be here long.”

  We stayed around the hospital for the rest of the day, talking about how wonderful it was that God had given us another chance to be with Daddy King, especially his ten living grandchildren (one of A.D. and Naomi’s daughters, Darlene, had died suddenly, at age twenty, while jogging). To his grandchildren, Daddy King was immovable; he was so strong, and he would always fix everything. To some of them, he was the only father they had known in the wake of Martin’s and A.D.’s deaths.

  Daddy King lived another month, giving everybody a chance to visit him and hold him one last time. The Sunday that he passed, I was in New York. I had gone to the theater that afternoon. When I checked my phone messages, I saw that I’d had a barrage of calls from Yolanda and Bernice informing me that he had passed.

  The first thing I thought about was how earlier that morning I’d had strong thoughts about him. I’d wondered how he was doing. I guess that was an omen, though I didn’t know it at the time. I called the airport, thinking the last plane to Atlanta had gone, but I found that my friend and date to the theater, Dr. Lonnie MacDonald, had called Eastern Airlines and explained to them what had happened. They held a plane for me so that I could return home that night.

  When I arrived in Atlanta, Andy met me at the airport. Andy was always there when anything happened. When Mama King was murdered, he was there right away. Two years later, when A.D. and Naomi’s daughter Darlene passed, he was there. I was so glad to see him. I was so glad that I could be there for Christine, too, because both her mother and father were gone now.

  On the morning of November 11, 1984, Daddy King had attended church services at Atlanta’s Salem Baptist Church to hear his favorite preacher, Reverend Jasper Williams. That afternoon, he suffered a heart attack and was rushed to Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital where he died that evening at 5:41 p.m., with his surviving child, Christine, at his side. He was eighty-four. Daddy King’s death marked the first time any senior member of the King family had died a natural death.

  * * *

  AS TIME TRUDGED on after Daddy King’s death, not only did I miss his voice, but I sure could have used his shoulder to lean on. Once again I continued to try to push open the system for the powerless. I still had to take my lumps. I had my share of embarrassments, and I certainly had a good measure of egg on my face.

  For the next election, 1988, which pitted Republican incumbent vice president George H. W. Bush against Michael Dukakis, I began to assess my role in national politics. I had devoted the Center to the hard work of voter education and registration. I had lobbied for causes ranging from gun control to gay rights to full employment. Not many liberals or progressive politicians in the last decade had run for office without asking for and obtaining my assistance. Yet I was not entirely plea
sed. I just couldn’t see how, in keeping with my focus on nonviolence, I could continue to support one candidate over another. When it came to the point at which there were black candidates running against other blacks, it just didn’t feel right to me.

  I thought to myself, It looks like I’m against somebody if I’m for somebody else. My best bet is probably to be independent or nonpartisan.

  I had addressed every Democratic National Convention since 1976, but never a Republican one. I decided that it would be a good time to continue rising above partisan politics, so a few months before the 1988 Republican National Convention, I went to see Bush. I wanted to determine if there was a way I could impart a message of goodwill to the delegation. In explaining my intentions, I told him, “My husband’s dream of equality was not a Democratic dream or a Republican dream. It was for all America. I want to appeal to the convention delegates as an ambassador of goodwill, to continue this quest for political and economic inclusion for all Americans, from the very poor to the rich, for farmers, city dwellers, and suburbanites, Ivy League colleges, major corporations, and even minimum wage workers.”

  Instead of supporting my mission, the vice president looked at me rather blankly. “Coretta, I guess that can’t do any harm. Let me check with my people and get back to you.”