Keeper of civil rights flame dies aged 78

CORETTA SCOTT KING, who turned a life shattered by the assassination of her husband Martin Luther King into one devoted to enshrining his legacy of human rights and equality, has died at the age of 78.

“We appreciate the prayers and condolences from people across the country,” the King family said in a statement. The family said she died during the night. Ms King suffered a serious stroke and heart attack last August.

“It’s a bleak morning for me and for many people and yet it’s a great morning because we have a chance to look at her and see what she did and who she was,” poet Maya Angelou said on ABC’s Good Morning America.

“It’s bleak because I can’t - many of us can’t - hear her sweet voice but it’s great because she did live, and she was ours. I mean African-Americans and white Americans and Asians, Spanish-speaking - she belonged to us and that’s a great thing.”

Ms King died at Santa Monica Hospital, a holistic health centre in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, 16 miles south of San Diego, said her sister, Edythe Scott Bagley.

She had gone to California to rest and be with family, former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young said.

Mr Young said Coretta King’s fortitude rivalled that of her husband.

“She was strong if not stronger than he was,” Mr Young said. “She lived a graceful and beautiful life, and in spite of all of the difficulties, she managed a graceful and beautiful passing.”

She was a supportive lieutenant to her husband during the most tumultuous days of the American civil rights movement, and after his assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968, she kept his dream alive while also raising their four children.

“I’m more determined than ever that my husband’s dream will become a reality,” Ms King said soon after his slaying.

She became a symbol in her own right of her husband’s struggle for peace and brotherhood, presiding with a quiet, steady, stoic presence over seminars and conferences on global issues.

Ms King wrote a book - My Life With Martin Luther King Jr - and, in 1969 founded the multimillion-dollar Martin Luther King Jr Centre for Non-violent Social Change. She saw to it that the centre became deeply involved with the issues she said breed violence - hunger, unemployment, voting rights and racism.