“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”
― Coretta Scott King
“My story is a freedom song of struggle. It is about finding one’s purpose, how to overcome fear and to stand up for causes bigger than one’s self.”
― Coretta Scott King
“My story is a freedom song from within my soul. It is a guide to discovery, a vision of how even the worst pain and heartaches can be channeled into human monuments, impenetrable and everlasting.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Revenge and retaliation always perpetuate the cycle of anger, fear and violence.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.”
― Coretta Scott King
“The woman power of this nation can be the power which makes us whole and heals the rotten community, now so shattered by war and poverty and racism. I have great faith in the power of women who will dedicate themselves whole-heartedly to the task of remaking our society.”
― Coretta Scott King
“As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses… An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Wherever there was injustice, war, discrimination against women, gays and the disadvantaged, I did my best to show up and exert moral persuasion.”
― Coretta Scott King
“The Voting Rights Act was, and still is, vitally important to the future of democracy in the United States.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Something is wrong that we have to feed so many. Why should there be poverty with all of our science and technology? There is no deficit in human resources – it is a deficit in human will.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Segregation was wrong when it was forced by white people, and I believe it is still wrong when it is requested by black people.”
― Coretta Scott King
“You have to have people who prick the consciences of the nation.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Non-violence is a permanent attitude we bring to the breakfast table and bring to bed at night.”
― Coretta Scott King
“When fear rushed in, I learned how to hear my heart racing but refused to allow my feelings to sway me. That resilience came from my family. It flowed through our bloodline.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.”
― Coretta Scott King
“We should not forget that in the ’60s, George Wallace’s motto was ‘segregation forever,’ and that he did nothing to deter bombings and other acts of violence and, by his actions, condoned them.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Sometimes, I am also identified as a civil rights leader or a human rights activist. I would also like to be thought of as a complex, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human being with a rich storehouse of experiences, much like everyone else, yet unique in my own way, much like everyone else.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Thank God we have the example of Martin Luther King, Jr. People need role models. They need to see examples of people in peoples’ lives, and that’s why it’s so important not just to commemorate his life, but to study and try to live by the principles of that life.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Just be what you are. And I try to be my best self and be what I am and knowing what I am and be satisfied with that. And if people don’t know it, maybe they’ll eventually know it.”
― Coretta Scott King
“During the bus boycott, I was tested by fire, and I came to understand that I was not a breakable crystal figurine.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Nelson Mandela sat in a South African prison for 27 years. He was nonviolent. He negotiated his way out of jail. His honor and suffering of 27 years in a South African prison is really ultimately what brought about the freedom of South Africa. That is nonviolence.”
― Coretta Scott King
“The failure to invest in youth reflects a lack of compassion and a colossal failure of common sense.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Nonviolence is the only credible response to the violence we’re seeing around the world.”
― Coretta Scott King
“I suppose I experienced the personal dilemma that baffles every working woman. What happens when you are expected to be Superwoman, to perform a dozen conflicting tasks at the same time?”
― Coretta Scott King
“It is plain that we don’t care about our poor people except to exploit them as cheap labor and victimize them through excessive rents and consumer prices.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Our Congress passes laws which subsidize corporation farms, oil companies, airlines, and houses for suburbia. But when they turn their attention to the poor, they suddenly become concerned about balancing the budget and cut back on the funds for Head Start, Medicare, and mental health appropriations.”
― Coretta Scott King
“I can’t help but believe that at some time in the not-too-distant future, there is going to be another movement to change these systemic conditions of poverty, injustice, and violence in people’s lives. That is where we’ve got to go, and it is going to be a struggle.”
― Coretta Scott King
“To abandon affirmative action is to say there is nothing more to be done about discrimination.”
― Coretta Scott King
“You cannot have peaceful means – peaceful means will have to be used to bring about peaceful ends. If you use destructive means, you’re going to bring about destructive ends.”
― Coretta Scott King
“People don’t ever have to starve to death; there are solutions. We have failed if we can’t eradicate hunger in Africa and Ethiopia.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Marrying Martin and the movement perfected my journey of discovery, soothed my yearning to pour out the values and vision within my soul.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to live his life serving others.”
― Coretta Scott King
“I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Mr. Sessions’ conduct as a U.S. Attorney, from his politically-motivated voting fraud prosecutions to his indifference toward criminal violations of civil rights laws, indicated that he lacks the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.”
― Coretta Scott King
“I think that… discrimination in the job market is a very important area where work needs to be done.”
― Coretta Scott King
“In the area of economic justice, we still have a long way to go. We have too many people who are discriminated against just because they happen to be black or they happen to be a woman or some other minority.”
― Coretta Scott King
“If you use weapons of war to bring about peace, you’re going to have more war and destruction.”
― Coretta Scott King
“While not a panacea for the nation’s illegal immigration problems, employer sanctions are one necessary means of stopping the exploitation of vulnerable workers and the undercutting of American jobs and living standards.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Nonviolence would work today, it would work 2,000 years from now, it would work 5,000 years from now.”
― Coretta Scott King
“I believe that women know if their husbands are unfaithful. They feel it.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Before I was married to Martin and became a King, I was a proud Scott, shaped by my mother’s discernment and my father’s strength.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Scandal sells books; fidelity does not.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Civil rights leaders, including my husband and Albert Turner, have fought long and hard to achieve free and unfettered access to the ballot box. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Mama and Daddy King represent the best in manhood and womanhood, the best in a marriage, the kind of people we are trying to become.”
― Coretta Scott King
“There is a spirit and a need and a man at the beginning of every great human advance. Every one of these must be right for that particular moment of history, or nothing happens.”
― Coretta Scott King
“If American women would increase their voting turnout by ten percent, I think we would see an end to all of the budget cuts in programs benefiting women and children.”
― Coretta Scott King
“I’m fulfilled in what I do. I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes – the finer things of life – would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Particularly in the South, efforts continue to be made to deny blacks access to the polls, even where blacks constitute the majority of the voters.”
― Coretta Scott King
“There is no reason why a nation as rich as ours should be blighted by poverty, disease, and illiteracy.”
― Coretta Scott King
“I think if people really read Martin Luther King, Jr., then they would begin to understand what he really represented.”
― Coretta Scott King
“I always knew that I was called to do something. I didn’t know what, but I finally rationalized after I met Martin – and it took a lot of praying to discover this – that this was probably what God had called me to do: to marry him.”
― Coretta Scott King
“We can prevent many people from becoming terrorists by truly listening to people who feel they’ve been treated unjustly and responding to their concerns with a sense of justice and compassion.”
― Coretta Scott King
“I don’t see how you can separate human rights and the rights of all people, no matter what their sexual orientation is.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civil union.”
― Coretta Scott King
“A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing to protect traditional marriages.”
― Coretta Scott King
“A vote for George Wallace is a vote for the past and oppression.”
― Coretta Scott King
“I feel George Wallace symbolizes something in the past which America has rejected.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Like Gandhi, my husband had struggled with the issue of materialism.”
― Coretta Scott King
“On Thanksgiving Night, 1942, when I was fifteen years old, white racists burned our house to the ground.”
― Coretta Scott King
“What most did not understand then was that I was not only married to the man I loved, but I was also married to the movement that I loved.”
― Coretta Scott King
“Knowing what I know now, if I could have chosen parents, I would have chosen exactly the ones God selected for me.”
― Coretta Scott King
“My professional and personal roots in Alabama are deep and lasting.”
― Coretta Scott King
“I am scared that if Ronald Reagan gets into office, we are going to see more of the Ku Klux Klan and a resurgence of the Nazi Party.”
― Coretta Scott King
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