My Life, My Love, My Legacy (2024)

Remarkable woman especially what she went through as a widow while encouraging her children to integrate Atlanta schools. Full review later.

4.5 stars

Note. Written with collaborator post-humus. Some language is repetitive due to that.

Coretta Scott King's memoirs as told by the Reverend Dr. Barbara Reynolds is a book that was 20 years in the making although the seeds of this project were planted 42 years ago when Reynolds first interviewed King. King's book is really good. In it she recounts her upbringing in rural Alabama and her dreams to become a concert singer. That all changed when she met a young seminary student named Martin Luther King Jr. She later became his wife and was also a powerful figure in the Civil Rights Movement. Coretta was truly a partner with Dr. King. In fact there would be no Dr. King without Coretta. She reviewed his sermons and speeches while at the same time she pushed him politically. Coretta was a pacifist since her college years and later pushed Dr. King to publicly denounce America's involvement in the war in Vietnam. Their marriage was not perfect, as no marriage is. The Kings had disagreements as to Coretta's role in the movement. Coretta wanted to be an activist and a mother while Martin just wanted her to be a stay at home mother. As the independent woman that she was, Coretta decided that she could have it all by giving speeches, protesting, performing concerts, and fundraising for the movement.

The second half of the book focuses on her life after Dr. King's assassination. She talks about the challenges of creating and nurturing her "fifth child", the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. She was also an activist and grassroots lobbyist in her own right. She was influential in getting the law that made Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday (as well as other legislation). She was also involved in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa and helped former totalitarian countries to become democracies.

The Coretta that I knew, before reading this book, was the woman in all the black and white photos marching with Dr. King. The history books don't tell the full story. Coretta was an influential woman as many women were during the Civil Rights Movement but who don't get their due compared to the male leaders. I highly recommend that you read her book in order to learn more about her story.

In her later years Coretta Scott King shared her story with her chosen biographer, Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds, resulting in the posthumous autobiography My Life My Love My Legacy.

Most remember Coretta as the wife of Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Coretta wanted us to know who she was, not only as the supporter and partner in her husband 's work but in her own right as a life-long pacifist and human rights leader.

Coretta's courage and determination was sustained by her deep Christian faith, which gave her strength to endure what would break those of us made of baser metal.

From her childhood she was cognizant of racism; as her father endeavored to run businesses to support her family he was victimized, his businesses destroyed. The family home, built by Coretta's grandfather, was burned to the ground, and her uncle lynched. Her education was sub par and yet she won a scholarship to Antioch College.

Coretta had the gift of song and music and planned to pursue a career as a concert singer. Then a friend introduced her to a young minister who wanted a wife; his standards were very high and he was frustrated that he would never find his perfect helpmate. Until he met Coretta.

At their first meeting Martin Luther King Jr. identified Coretta as the woman of his dreams--a woman with character, intelligence, personality, and beauty. She quickly found herself falling in love. Leaving her dream of performance behind she instead graduated with a music education degree. Coretta, raised Methodist, found herself a Baptist minister's wife with all it's obligations and limitations, living in a parsonage.

Martin and Coretta shared a commitment to pacifism and a dream of social justice in America. Coretta was a strong, independent, and committed woman who sometimes chaffed at Martin's expectations to be wife and mother and keeper of the home fire as he went out to slay dragons. She considered herself an equal partner in her husband's work and not just a helpmate. She aided in fundraising through Freedom Concerts and speeches. She offered Martin a safe haven were he could grapple with depression and dejection, seeking renewal through prayer and introspection.

Coretta covers the harrowing stories of non-violent protests met with hatred, murder, beatings, and police brutality. That the freedom fighters were able to forgive these actions can only be attributed to their deep faith. At times I had to put the book down; at times I found myself in tears. I know about these events, yet Coretta's words affected me deeply.

The later part of the story, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., we see Coretta blossom into leadership on her own. She tells about her work creating the King Center, establishing Martin Luther King Day, her anti-war work and support of feminism, and attacking Apartheid. We learn that she makes mistakes and learns from them. We hear her anger when she and other women leaders in the movement were sidelined. She shares her feelings about presidential support, or lack of support, of her causes. She rejects stories about her husband's infidelity as lies and holds a belief that government agencies were behind the murder of her husband. And she talks about her children.

The publication of Coretta's autobiography is timely, a lesson in how resistance movements can alter policy, raise awareness, and impact cultural norms. On the other hand, we now also understand that the battle is ongoing; each generation must commit to standing up to injustice in all its forms.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

I learned so much from Mrs. King’s book. Her strength before and after Dr. King’s death was remarkable. There were so many words of wisdom throughout the book, I ended up writing notes. Would highly recommend.

This is a posthumous memoir of Coretta Scott King (1927-2006). Apparently, King narrated the memoir to Rev. Barbara Reynolds in 2006 along with some interviews. Reynolds was a longtime friend of King. The book covers her life from birth to death.

King tells of the racial hatred she had to endure growing up in Alabama, the whites burning her family home when she was a child, and racial discrimination throughout most of her life. She tells of her life with MLK, the bombing of their home on January 30, 1956 with her and her children inside. She also tells of MLK’s assassination and her years after his death. King also tells of her aspiration for a musical career and her scholarship to the New England Conservatory of Music. The book reveals Coretta as a person out from the shadows of her famous husband.
Coretta Scott King was the first African-American to lie in State in the Georgia State Capitol upon her death.
I enjoyed reading the memoir of a most remarkable woman.

LaVoy and Rashad did a good job narrating the book. January LaVoy is a Broadway actor, voice-over artist and audiobook narrator. Phylicia Rashad is and actress and audiobook narrator.

It was a restless night, and I spent awake time finishing this fascinating story by Coretta Scott King. To live with a man who was so very instrumental in becoming and remaining one of the pivotal members of the American Civil Right movement was not an easy task. Their's was a relationship of strength with a very strong bond of Christian faith.

I found it sad to learn that in many of the events, women were not encouraged to attend. For example, she was not invited to go with Martin to meet then President John Kennedy after the very successful march on Washington. She literally walked by Martin's side for hundreds of marches. Trained in college for a life of operatic singing, when she met Martin, all that changed.

She noted many behind the scenes bickering regarding who received the most attention, but overall knew that even though the paths were different, the cause remained the same.

Strong, resilient and beautiful, Coretta was instrumental in keeping the memories of MLK, Jr. alive, long after his assignation, There is such beauty in her portrayal of family life with Martin and their four children.

Four Stars

Audio Version

Growing up and throughout life you learn and hear about everything involving Martin Luther King Jr. I enjoyed this book! It gave you a detailed story into getting to know Mrs. King as Coretta and not just the Wife of Mr. King. I knew she didn't have an easy life growing up but I was still shocked over a lot that happened through her life. There was a lot to learn about Mrs. Coretta in this book. I recommend this book to everyone of all ages. I read the physical book and then listened to the audio.

I was delighted to be a goodreads giveaway winner of "My Life, My Love,My Legacy" by Coretta Scott King. This book is based on years of interviews with The Rev.Dr. Barbara Reynolds. Mrs. King takes the interviews from her birth, childhood, years in college.She spends chapters talking about her marriage to Martin Luther King, the years fighting for Civil rights during and after her husband's death. She talks about the racial hatred's she has endured in her life. the murder of her husband. The years she spent continuing with his legacy for equal rights. The building of the King Center. Her four children they raised and she continued to raise after Martin Luther KIng's murder. She has met and made friends with many famous people along the way. the wives of Malcolm X. and Medgar Evars. Oprah Winfrey, the Mandelas. She was quite a woman herself and accomplished so much in the decades . I really liked to read a book that had her own words and feelings. She really was a magnificent woman herself. this was an ARC book that is coming out this month. I think anyone who has an interest in Coretta Scott King and her husband Martin Luther King will find this to be an interesting book. I was glad to get the chance to learn more about Coretta Scott King. I am also glad that Rev.Dr.Barbara Reynolds decided to share these interviews with the world.

The early part of her life, learning she was into music/singing, was new-news to me. Yet, I wondered if she didn't marry King would she be Coretta Scott King, and pursued singing as a career and possibly marrying a Jew as stated in the earlier readings. I believe her life was destined, and she became a legacy, icon, and great woman to be remembered yesterday, today, and years to come.

I was more amazed by her life while with King and even more after King's death. She took on her "5th child" the book keeps stating, King Center, and pursued this goal or dream regardless of the nay-sayers and funding. Even some of the nay-sayers were those who once marched and worked with her husband, Martin Luther King. Most of all, Coretta continued the Civil rights movement even after his death. What I liked was that Harry Belafonte let Coretta Scott King know that her presence spoke in high volumes, carried weight, without saying a word. I also sensed this about her.

I enjoyed the audio book version, enjoyed the female readers--voice was quite soothing. If you like historical, memoir-like books with so many names to recall/remember during the life span of the author, then you will be amazed and enlightened by this read. Yet for me, it was a bit too much for my liking. Mature audience, those over 50 years old, are familiar with these incidents, movement, and social awareness (like my dad while listening to audio book with me a few times and would quote things before or when it was stated...was like wow. I only know minimal.)

She later speak about her legacy--her children, and glad to hear about Yolanda pastoring at her church home, and Martin III pursuing the same educational pattern as his father and grandfather whom I had the pleasure of meeting one on one at Novak King when I was in the 7th or 8th grade. I still remember telling him that I wanted to see his brother Dexter since our school only said a King was coming to visit in our auditorium...hoping it was Dex. He chuckled. I am glad to hear he tried to help the young men with a rite to passage program to avoid the traps of prison or joining a gang, or even selling drugs. This family was about solving poverty, violence with anti-violence measures and seeing social change in positive ways.

We need to know our history, hopefully not to repeat it or be uninformed.

*Disclaimer: I am borrowing the audio version (also the Kindle version) on Overdrive via Sac Library for leisure reading purposes and sharing my honest opinion on the reading as a whole.

From her childhood, growing up and education, through meeting Martin and their life together, but that's just the first half of this great biography. It was the second half that I found even more interesting, her struggles to create the King center, struggles with gender inequality as she pushed forward alone after Martin, her work with and commentary on every POTUS from Kennedy to Bush, working with leaders around the world while often ignored in her own country.

Definitely worth a read, and I learned so much about her and her family that moved me. Her enduring friendships with the other assassination widows of that time. Her struggles with her youngest child who grew up thinking that anytime people left home they might be shot (after all it wasn't just Martin who met this fate in their family), her power struggles to protect her husband's legacy from both corporations and gov't entities that have tried to profit from his image and speeches.

So very much I never knew, never learned because the history tends to concentrate so much on one man, one letter, one speech, one march, and one death while leaving out a much larger legacy and struggle.

This book embodies the sentiment of, behind every successful man is a woman, but behind every successful woman is herself. It was good to read about Coretta and the story of her activism, and how the issues she cared about were not necessarily the issues that MLK cared about (for instance, she was a pacifist and protested the Vietnam War from the beginning). It was also sad to read about how women were pushed to the margins of the Civil Rights movement and how she was denied her one chance to meet President Kennedy.

I felt the first half of this book was stronger than the second half. The story of her origins and fighting for civil rights with MLK was fascinating. Growing up in the late 80s, the Civil Rights movement seemed only about whites only water foundations, but learning that Coretta's house was burnt to the ground by white people because her father was too successful in his business, and that his business was also later burnt to the ground, and that they had no legal recourse, puts a frightening understanding about what life was like for black people during segregation.

The second half of the book seemed more rambling. Instead of placing events in chronological order, things were grouped by topic, and then, in some chapters, some tangent seemed randomly thrown in. It also turned a lot more to defending her actions from criticism she has received and setting the record straight than continuing a narrative.

Overall, I feel this is an important book to read, and do recommend.

A posthumous memoir by Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow, told via a journalist, minister, and longtime friend. I really tremendously enjoyed reading this book, and the power of the book was really powerful. I felt the power she had as a wife and mother was incredible and so appreciate the vision she had and they had as husband and wife as a leader among the black movement. The assassination of Kennedy happened during this time, and Coretta felt the influence that their time was short, so they did their best to make it top quality time as it could be.

In an afterward, Reynolds, a journalist and friend to Coretta Scott King (1927-2006) and a former USA Today editorial board member, offers the “making of her memoir,” which required many recorded interviews since her first article about King for the Chicago Tribune in 1975, with their formal contract signed in 1997. Overall, the tone is as gracious, elegant, and soft-spoken as the legendary Southern lady and concert singer, who was born in the deeply segregated town of Heiberger, Alabama, where her black family was regularly terrorized by whites, including the burning of her house when she was 15 years old. Resilient and fearless due to the example of her harassed father, King was inculcated in the Mount Tabor AME Zion church, where her grandfathers were leaders. Attending the Lincoln missionary school, she found her “escape route” from the South in multicultural Antioch College (Ohio), then followed her passion for classical music to the New England Conservatory, in Boston, where she met the “too short” and unprepossessing minister from Atlanta, MLK Jr. Coretta wanted to be a concert singer and live comfortably in the North, while Martin wanted her to be his wife and have children and move to Montgomery to fight desegregation with nonviolence. Eventually, she came around to embrace his ideals. While her memoir is very much her own journey, it is also about her collaboration with her husband, and she insists they both had a calling by God: “God appeared to have appointed Martin and me…to become the messengers.” The author does not countenance rumors that her husband was unfaithful, insisting that the FBI planted evidence as a smear campaign. In the end, her four children and her “fifth child,” the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, in Atlanta, remain her greatest legacies.
A touching memoir from an important figure in the civil rights movement.

Nearly every image of Coretta Scott King since her husband’s death has seemed suffused with preternatural stillness, her face fixed with the brave solitude of timeless interior bereavement. For all of her accomplishment and vivacity in real life, she has remained frozen in the collective imagination, among that sad pantheon of civil-rights-era icons: the political widow in a pillbox hat. King describes the weight of that identity in “My Life, My Love, My Legacy,” her posthumous memoir, as told to the journalist Barbara Reynolds over a period of 30 years. “There is a Mrs. King. There is also Coretta. How one became detached from the other remains a mystery to me,” King says.

This book is distinctly Coretta’s story. While there is nothing to radically challenge the impression of her as carefully restrained, what makes “My Life” particularly absorbing is its quiet account of a brutal historical era, as experienced by a very particular kind of African-American woman: well educated, cautious, a prototypically 1950s-style wife and mother. The book’s cover features a picture of King, young and smiling, but still radiating that unmistakable aura of church-lady reserve.

Though such women have rarely been given voice, they were the staunch backbone of the civil rights movement. They raised funds as well as children, did the accounting as well as the housework, taught school and cooked the meals. They kept the minutes at N.A.A.C.P. meetings, played the organ at church, coordinated their husbands’ schedules.

Like Coretta Scott King, they operated within a regime that was both punishing and exhausting for being so utterly beholden to the politics of respectability. The pressure to disprove pervasive cultural stereotypes of slovenliness, ignorance, criminal threat and rapacious sexuality meant striving for perfection always. One could not risk being charged with the slightest human fallibility for fear of deadly retribution. The harshly unforgiving surveillance of the larger white community was reiterated within black communities as the stress of constant, and sometimes cruel, self-surveillance.

Living with terror is the thread that runs through “My Life.” This is a tale of church assaults before Dylann Roof, of cattle prods before there were tasers, of nooses before there were chokeholds, of Cointelpro before there was Breitbart, of voter suppression before anyone bothered to deny it. King’s earliest memories include her parents’ home being burned down when she was 15 years old. As she grows up, neighbors disappear. Bodies are found hanging from trees. Among the in-laws, her husband’s mother was shot and killed in the middle of a church service by a mentally disturbed man; his brother was found floating in a pool under suspicious circ*mstances; and when his father, Martin Luther King Sr., passes away at the age of 84, it marked “the first time any senior member of the King family had died a natural death.”

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Some say that religion is, at base, a mechanism to handle the human response to mortality and loss. And for all the death and tragedy in “My Life,” it is King’s grounding in her husband’s theology of peaceful resistance that enables her survival against excruciating odds. Nonviolence, she reiterates, is not a matter of passively accepting whatever happens. It is active. It is a practice. As her husband preached: “Justice is really love in calculation.”

That power, of love as calculation, composes King, binds her together, time and again. Her practice of such belief is meditative, and becomes reflected in her diction: She speaks of endurance, overcoming, soul-sustenance for the long term. There is little in the way of open sadness in this book; after her husband’s assassination, she turns to the project of creating the King Center as a monument to him, filling the emptiness with boxes of his notes and speeches.

By the same token, there is a marked absence of expressed joy, other than at the birth of her children. Her emotions are muted in a way that is intriguing rather than off-putting. This disposition also presents the reader with a different way of looking at the world — one of extraordinary calm and the purest resolve. It is restful somehow, and generous, in a manner that is unfashionable in our culture of 24/7 emotional display. King’s language does not privilege personal happiness, private delights, exuberant emotional extremes of any sort. Rather, her life is filtered through prescribed priorities, devotions, principles, commitments. This is life lived in service to others rather than with concern for individual regard or even personal safety.

There is unusual inspiration in that mien. Before becoming King’s amanuensis, Barbara Reynolds was a journalist assigned to do a story for The Chicago Tribune. They became such good friends that Reynolds changed her vocation along the way: “Before I started hanging around with Mrs. King, I wasn’t much of a Christian.” But hang around she did, and by the time King died in 2006, Reynolds had become an ordained minister. It is but one small tribute to the power of the King family’s dedication to a “Ministry of Presence.” The larger, more ecumenical meaning of Coretta Scott King’s life, love and legacy may be found in the peace-lending power, needed now as never before, of prophetic traditions that hold us and heal, “bringing into existence images and a destiny we had not seen or lived before.” Highly Recommend!!

I was quite elated that my local book club's monthly book pick was My Life, My Love, My Legacy by Coretta Scott King. A fellow member of sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, I also had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. King speak at my alma mater in 2002. I always admired her resiliency, poise, and intellect.
As told by the Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds, I found this book to be well written, as it gives readers a glimpse into Mrs. King's numerous components of her life, consisting of her early years, the matriculation of her marriage, motherhood, and post assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
There were many facets about Mrs. King that I was not aware of, including her influence in women rights and foreign policy, pioneering the development of the King Center, and her love of the performing arts.
Mrs. King is a gem, whose significance reverberates in the pages of the book. I highly recommend this.

A solid 3.5 stars. The first half described their life; their marriage, the highs, the lows, the kids, the turbulent times. But after the assassination mid-book, it lost focus and I did too.

What a remarkable woman!!! I’m ashamed to admit that I only knew her as Martin Luther King, Jr’s wife. She was so much more!!!

Coretta Scott King was an absolute treasure and her story is beautiful. I so enjoyed seeing her grow into her own person even as she grew alongside her husband, and then after her husband died. She was a force for justice and change and our nation would not be the same without her (and of course her husband, but this is about Coretta). She remained faithful to her husband’s cause/movement of non-violence and love throughout her life while also making it her own. She was strong and yet gentle, outspoken and yet courteous. She and her husband led such beautiful lives of faithfulness to God, unconditional love, and justice for all. This is a must read.

This is a very important book to read that adds insight to the lives of the King family. Reading it left me with a very heavy heart being reminded how cruel our world truly is. I am glad that I read it and it helped me to understand and learn a lot about those times and their struggles.

Such an incredible life story!

Read all of my reviews at bit.ly/PageBedtime

In the midst of a reading slump, I solicited help via social media and was provided with several recommendations. The first I chose to take up was Mrs. Coretta Scott King's autobiography, My Life, My Love, My Legacy. This book was published in 2017, more than 10 years after her death. The book is a chronological story of her life as it was told to Dr. Barbara Reynolds.

For this re-telling, I selected the audiobook which was read first by January LaVoy then after Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination, was read by Phylicia Rashad of The Cosby Show fame. My biggest question was why the change in narrators. I think maybe the publisher wanted to give readers an audible signal that Mrs. King's life vastly changed after her husband's, her love's murder but that she continued to live a life full of charitable work and purpose.

And that is my biggest takeaway from this wonderful book. Mrs. Coretta Scott King was an activist in her own right. She was an educated and independent woman who was a loving daughter, mother, and wife. She was a fierce partner and confidant during her husband's very demanding and successful life. I truly enjoyed listening to the stories, many that I've heard growing up, from her perspective. It was also eye-opening just how much she did after that fateful day in April of 1968. Her strength through harassing and threatening phone calls, her patience with an often-traveled spouse who's work was never done, and her persistence and commitment to non-violence when there had been so much violence against her family. I appreciated how she shared private bits of her relationship with her children. I also enjoyed learning little facts about her that I never would have known, like her reason for never re-marrying and who funded her living quarters in the latter part of her life.

Dr. King is well known for his eloquent speaking and presentation skills. This book proves that Mrs. King was also a talented communicator. In this book, her prose is rhythmic and inspirational. I closed my listening app feeling satisfied as it ended with this:

For struggle is a never-ending process, and freedom is never really won. You earn it, and win it - in every generation. -Coretta Scott King

Recommendation: I absolutely recommend this book to anyone. It should resonate with any reader on a variety of levels as it activates a wide range of emotions. Mrs. King has left a long-lasting legacy that her children and grandchildren should be most proud of. I am thankful for the recommendation from Kara, and I hope my review is a way of paying it forward to another reader.

Until next time ... Read on!

Regardless of whether I purchase a book, borrow a book, or receive a book in exchange for review, my ultimate goal is to be honest, fair, and constructive. I hope you've found this review helpful.

Read all of my reviews at bit.ly/PageBedtime

This book has taught me so much about Coretta Scott King. Her life was amazing and right from the beginning she was a hard working woman. Determined to get her education and make a legacy for herself Coretta never gave up no matter what the circ*mstances were. This book is a must read!!!!

This title is great on audiobook. It was so interesting to learn about the woman behind the man. Coretta Scott King had her calling, as she points out to Martin, and that was to serve the black community and to move society closer to the Beloved Community. Coretta is a fascinating woman who was more than the wife (and later the widow) of Martin Luther King, Jr. She was a singular voice for a movement and a people that *still* deserves to be heard.

I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook. This family went through a lot. Mrs. King went through a lot but she had so much strength but I know it was no one but God who got her through.

A 6-star read. I literally do not have words for this book. I absolutely loved Coretta Scott King's voice and spirit, and learned so much about civil rights, world history and the sacrifices made by both Martin Luther King Jr. and the King family in the name of the civil rights movement. Also, although I do not by any means identify as religious, I have to respect the important role that Christian faith played in Mrs. King's life, and appreciated how her faith helped her to embrace and promote nonviolence. Her opinions on world figures and events are fascinating and well-considered. This is by far the best book I have read in 2022 so far. I love that it introduced me not just to a great public figure and politician but to a thinker who used faith and influence for good and began a legacy of pacifism that is still in progress today. I would buy fifty copies of this book if I could. A story that is at once inspiring, captivating, important and deeply human is hard to come by these days. This one is beautiful and a must-read.

Still forming my thoughts on this book, but it feels weird to NOT say something about it. I guess I'll say this much: if you didn't know Coretta Scott King was a powerhouse, this book will let you know. So much more than Martin's wife, she had her own opinions, her own calling, and her own gift set in accomplishing those things.

Her thoughts on Martin's infidelity were surprising and I had NO idea about the trial surrounding James Earl Ray. So much left to explore. It's a book that will make you want to read more books surrounding that period in time.

I'm in awe of Coretta Scott King's calm demeanor, strength, courage, and determination. She was most certainly a woman of many talents. She was just as much of an activist as Martin was, but stayed behind the scenes more. She cared for her children as any devoted mother would, and she loved Martin with all of her heart. As I was reading this book, I could feel her anguish and desire to grieve, but she never did publicly, or even in front of her children. She was their pillar of strength, and after Martin was assassinated, she made sure to carry on exactly as he would have wanted. She stayed an activist, and was a powerful force in the movement right up until her death in 2006.

This book is an important read, especially now.

What a great memoir! I learned so much about Ms. Coretta as well as her husband. What it affirmed to me is that we still have white washed both Dr. King and the movement and sexism ignored and erased a lot of the work done by Black women within the movement. Chapter 18 is extremely relevant today and it’s smart to heed her warning. Highly recommend this book!

4.5 stars. Very inspirational and great book for understanding the Kingian legacy. Coretta is the legacy of her assassinated husband, but she is also her own person. Without Coretta there is no King Center and no federal holiday. Arguably she thrusted the King legacy too far in partisan politics and the Democratic Party, but it looks like she got wise on this in the 80’s and withdrew her influence in partisan politics.

What an amazing life Coretta lived! The writing was a little choppy with way to many names mentioned at times. It's sad to think she will never been known as just Coretta Scott King. It will either be "the wife of, the widow of, the mother of...".

Informative read but not the best text If you don't know who Coretta Scott King is before reading this book then it's definitely a must read for you if you have any interest in the life, legacy and impact of MLK. I was fascinated by the prospect of reading more about his wife, especially as I really only knew her in relation to her husband. So this seemed like this would be a good read.

The book tells King's life as told to Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds. Her childhood was especially fascinating and a reminder that we are not all that far from her experiences. And it was genuinely fascinating to read how she met her husband, how she became involved with his work and how she continued on after he died.

I guess I'm not sure what to expect (although it was really interesting to read this history from her POV) and think the writing style was part of the problem. When it's told to another person sometimes these works don't work really well (I read what is billed as MLK's autobiography as culled from his writings, speeches, etc.) but sometimes they do, as in Alex Haley's Malcolm X book.

It's a pity because sometimes the text was really interesting. And much to my surprise, there were times when it outright funny. The introduction immediately talks about how she is often discussed in relation to others (wife of, leader of, mother of, etc.). The next sentence says "Makes me sound like the attachments that come with my vacuum cleaner." I was NOT expecting this and had a good laugh. King makes an excellent point but what pleasantly surprised me was the humor and personality that occasionally really shone through in the book.

So while the book didn't quite work for me it may be a book I would have to return to in the future. I wonder if I might have understood the book better if I had read her other book 'My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr.' first. But I don't regret reading this one. Borrowed from the library, and that was best for me.

This autobiography of Coretta Scott King highlights the roles of women and of faith in the struggle for African-American civil rights. I was moved to tears of joy more than once as the movement overcame impossible odds. I was a child when these events took place and cheerfully oblivious for much of it, but the values of peaceful resistance and equal rights strongly influenced my formation. As a Christian, I am proud to recognize the profound impact of Jesus Christ on the guiding philosophy.

King expresses resentment at times of the jealousies that arose in the movement, something I had already noticed in John Lewis’s three-volume graphic-novel autobiography, March. She suggests that her husband, while being supportive of her, saw women’s place primarily in the home and as a support to the male leadership. After all, this is the 1950s and 60s. He was well ahead of his time, but nevertheless a product of his upbringing. But I was pleased to learn that the rumors of womanizing were part of a smear campaign by J. Edgar Hoover with no evidence that his wife ever saw.

The second half of the book, after her husband Martin’s death, lacked the thread of a coherent story. It became more accounts of various accomplishments including the founding of the Martin Luther King Jr. Institute for Non-violent Social Change. I was not completely comfortable with the way Mrs. King seemed to make a point of mentioning by name sources of opposition as if to shame them. Although non-violent, the tone did not fit my concept of reconciliation and left me feeling less uplifted by the read than the first half. My discomfort with the tone also made it hard to give credence to the idea presented that King’s assassination was a government plot.