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February 2006
Coretta Scott King laid to rest
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The body of Coretta Scott King was laid to rest Tuesday evening.
A large crowd was on hand at the King Center as the hearse carrying the body of Coretta Scott King, led by a cadre of Atlanta police motorcycle officers, arrived at 7:14 p.m.
An earlier plan to use a horse-drawn carriage was apparently scrapped.
A smattering of applause went up as the body arrived. The crowd of at least 1,000 began shouting “We love you!”
At 7:35 p.m., an honor guard pulled Mrs. King’s casket out of the hearse shortly after her children arrived. Mayor Shirley Franklin arrived at about 6:45 p.m., as did musical artist Stevie Wonder and other dignitaries and several buses full of mourners.
Doves were released by family members.
The first dove flew in circles repeatedly and then landed in the middle of the family. Six more doves were released by family. They lighted in the trees over the crypt.
Mrs. King’s coffin was then immediately placed in its crypt.
As the family departed, the crowd yelled, “I love you,” one last time.
Earlier, several wreaths were placed around the temporary crypt that will house Mrs. King until a permanent crypt is built next to her husband, Martin Luther King Jr.
Two marble vases sit at the foot of Mrs. King’s crypt, filled with roses nestled in baby’s breath. On the crypt is the inscription: “These three things: the greatest of these is love.”
A crowd outside the King Center that had numbered no more than 100 all day grew rapidly after the funeral ended.
Among the crowd were two women who braved the cold to share the experience with their adopted, bi-racial children.
Dawn Stowers, from Acworth, held 11-week-old Camille, and hummed to her softly while shielding her from the cold.
Christine Hinton, with her daughter, 10-month-old Moriah, said they were there to “teach the children about their heritage.”
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Funeral program a hot item
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The 24-page commemorative program was a hot item.
After the service, dozens of people wandered through the church searching for extras.
They were told to call the King Center, which printed 15,000 of the color programs.
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Service one to remember, attendees say
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As mourners departed New Birth Missionary Baptist, many said the 6-hour service was worth every minute.
“I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life,” said Ken Robinson, 35, of Stone Mountain. “I wouldn’t have missed for anything.”
“It was beautiful. It was touching. It was spiritual,” said Joyce Gibson, a 47-year-old New Orleans native who has been living in Norcross since Hurricane Katrina. “I feel blessed that I was able to be part of this.
“It was like you could just feel her,” Gibson said of Bernice King’s stirring eulogy. “The presence of God was in her.”
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Latest updates from the funeral
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Elder Bernice King, daughter of the Kings, began the final eulogy at 5:13 p.m. and spoke for about 38 minutes.
“I’m just here to celebrate,” she said at the beginning of her eulogy. “I don’t have to say a word.”
“We praise the lord for Coretta Scott King and her example and her life,” King added.
She delivered an impassioned and wide-ranging testimony that had some in the congregation on their feet and shouting, tying her mother’s life into a more far-reaching speech on God’s purpose.
King’s eulogy, followed by a benediction, capped the six-hour service that ended at 6 p.m. The casket of Coretta Scott King is now headed to the King Center, where she will be entombed.
Gospel king Bebe Winans at 5 p.m. did a roof-ripping version of “Stand,” followed by an intro to Bernice King by Andrew Young. The cameras panned the King family, looking worn out and understandably devastated, as CeCe Winans sang an elegant “He’s Concerned” at 5:12 p.m. She did a 1970s gospel classic “Fill Me Up Lord” before Bernice King spoke.
Bishop T.D, Jakes took the pulpit at 4:30 p.m., with the funeral roughly at the four-hour mark. He compared Mrs. King to Sarah, Abraham’s wife in the Old Testament, for having “her own faith and her own tenacity.”
He also said that even after she suffered a stroke and was in declining health, he was surprised at how strong she was.
“I came expecting to see someone really ill. But she was polished, her nails were donee, her hair was in place, and she was just serving it up,” said Jakes, whose MegaFest Christian gathering has become an Atlanta tradition.
Stevie Wonder, in signature sunglasses and cornrows, sang “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” at 3:40 p.m and at 4:05 p.m., Michael Bolton, a close friend of Mrs. King’s, performed a song he wrote for her “The Courage in Your Eyes.”
Although many addressed Mrs. King’s public or historical role, some eulogies were strictly personal. She was “my sister, my friend, my confidante,” said her sister-in-law, Christine King Farris, who spoke at 4 p.m.
“She began as my brother’s wife,” Ms. Farris said, “but years of sharing and triumphs, mountains and valleys, joy and sorrow, made Coretta as close to me as any blood sister could be. I will miss my sister-in-law, but I will try to carry on.”
Judge William Sessions, a former director of the FBI, told of receiving an invitation from Mrs. King to come to Atlanta in 1987 to be part of the official King birthday celebration. Given the long and well-documented persecution of Dr. King by the FBI in the ’50s and ’60s, he said,he found the symbolism of the invitation astonishing.
“I came to know and to love your mother with an admiration for the treasure that she was,” Sessions said.
“Following a video tribute, a group of family friends spoke, starting a little after 3 p.m. “Coretta Scott King gave people a backbone and poise,” said Attallah Shabazz, Malcolm X’s daughter. “If you didn’t have any of your own, you could mimic hers at least.” She also said the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and her father were united, not divided, in their vision of civil rights.
At 3 p.m., the time when the funeral service was scheduled to end, the presidents and their wives left the building. But there were at least 15 more people scheduled to go on stage, including family members and friends and notables such as T.D. Jakes and Andrew Young.
At about 2:45 p.m., both Hillary and Bill Clinton came to the microphone together to monstrous applause. Bill Clinton noted that she was a human being, not just a symbol. And he said the world would not have blinked an eye if she had chosen to walk away and raise her kids after her husband was assassinated. But she didn’t. He challenged the audience, “What are you going to do with the rest of your lives?”
He also challenged Atlanta: “Atlanta: what’s your responsibility to the future of the King Center. What are you going to do to make sure that this thing goes on?”
Former pres. George Bush Sr. got some laughs when he lost his place and said, “This may be your lucky day. I lost a page!” He noted he saw the “fruits” of the work of the Kings when he saw the sports film “Glory Road” with younger kids who didn’t understand what the students in the film went through, the discrimination of that era. It made him think “how far our society has come.”
Former Pres. Jimmy Carter cited the victims of Hurricane Katrina when referencing the racial struggles that remain: “We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. Those who are most devastated by Katrina know there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans. It is our responsibiliity to continue their crusade.”
He then concluded, “I’d like to say to my sister Coretta that we will miss you. Our sorrow is alleviated by the knowledge that you and your husband are united in glory. Thank you for what you meant for me and the world.”
Poet Maya Angelou, a longtime friend of Mrs. King, said she was speaking “as a sister [pause] of a sister.”
“I have beside me up here millions of people who are standing straight and erect,” she continued. “People who have learned something form Coretta Scott King.”
Earlier in her eulogy, which combined rolling rhythms with bursts of song, Angelou called Mrs. King “the quintessential African-American woman. She was born in the small town repressive South. Born of flesh, but destined to become iron.”
Rev. Joseph Lowery kept it light when he reached the dais. “Sit down before I take up an offering,” he joked. “I am netiher gambler or a better but who would have brought this crowd together but Coretta? Lord have mercy!”
Then he actually went political, with Pres. Bush right behind him. “She knew there were no weapons of mass destruction over there,” he declared. “But Coretta knew and we knew there were weapons of misdirection right here. Millions without health insurance, poverty abounds. For war, billions more. For the poor, no more.”
But Lowery did shake Bush’s hand afterwards, along with the former presidents. (Pres. Bush Sr. joked later on the stage: “I’d like to say something to my friend Joe Lowery. They used to send this guy to Washington. They used to keep score, Larry 21, Bush 3. It wasn’t a fair fight.”)
At about 1:50 p.m., Sen. Ted Kennedy was given a standing ovation by the New Birth crowd after he noted how hard King worked to ensure her late husband received a holiday for his work in civil rights. “Her quiet persistence prevailed. Only three Americans in our history have been given that high honor: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. And Coretta made it happen.”
Dr. Dorothy Height, chairman of the board of the National Council of Negro Women, addressed the thousands from her wheelchair, using a handheld microphone. She was a friend of Mrs. King’s for more than 55 years, and said that “it was she who really institutionalized so much of what Dr, King taught us… When people are going through doors now, I wish they could hear the stories of how those doors were opened.”
“Let us not just think about history,” Dr. Height said. “Let us continue to make history.”
Juandalynn R. Abernathy sang “Vissi d’Arte, Vissi d’Amore” from “Tosca,” one of many references to Mrs. King’s early life as a student of classical music and a promising soprano herself.
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, wore a huge red rose in her left lapel. She built on Mrs. King’s early career in the opera and her lifelong love of music, saying that she had joined a choir, a “constellation of guardian angels.”
“She sang for liberation. She sang for those who had no earthly reason to sing a song,” Franklin said.
President George W. Bush was the first tribute speaker at the funeral, addressing the congregation starting at 1 p.m.
“I’ve come today to offer the sympathy of our entire nation,” he said. Bush spoke for about eight minutes, evoking Moses, Isaiah and Jesus.
“Coretta Scott King not only upheld her husband’s legacy, she built her own,” he said. “When she spoke, America listened closely, because her voice carried the goodness and wisdom of a life well lived.”
“Thanks to her, millions of children are now living in a better country.”
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King Center prepares for arrival
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As afternoon waned into evening, authorities begin clearing press and the public from the area directly around King's crypt at the King Center, where Coretta Scott King will be entombed.At about 4:45 p.m., Saudia Muwwakkil, spokeswoman for the National Parks Service, explained why onlookers were forced to move across the street.
“The family asked for a private ceremony,” she said.
Shortly thereafter, someone in the crowd grumbled: “You’re talking about an icon and you’re saying they want a private funeral.”
Some had been there for hours.
But at 5:15 p.m., as the eulogy by King’s daughter, Bernice King, began at the funeral, some said the long hours of waiting in the cold at the King Center would send them home.
At 5:45 p.m., as eulogy wrapped up, those who left were replaced by others, and about 100 people still stood together, huddled and waiting for Coretta Scott King.
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Who participated in the funeral?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
RUSSELL GOODE: Music consultant for the Chattanooga School System, who accompanied Mrs. King on the piano when she sang.
BYRON CAGE: A singer-songwriter, Cage is the director of the New Birth Total Praise Choir.
BISHOP EDDIE LONG: Bernice King, the youngest of Coretta and Martin Luther King’s four children, is an elder at Bishop Eddie Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. The Lithonia chuch is the largest in Georgia with an estimated 25,000 members.
DR. SUZAN JOHNSON COOK: Cook is the first female President of the Hampton University Ministers’ Conference, the largest nondenominational conference of black clergy in the United States. Cook served on President Clinton’s Initiative on Race commission and his domestic policy council.
DR. DAVID MORROW: Morrow has been a member of the music faculty of Morehouse College since 1981 and has directed the Glee Club since 1987. Under his direction, the Glee Club has performed nationally, internationally, and regularly with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
DR. VERNON C. KING: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King’s nephew and pastor of the First Baptist Chuch of Greensboro, North Carolina.
JUANDALYNN ABERNATHY: Began performing spiritual music as a child, singing in the church where her father, Dr. Ralph Abernathy, was pastor. Dr. Abernathy was a close associate of Martin Luther King and was himself a leader of the civil rights movement.
JOYCE JOHNSON : Since 1953, Dr. Johnson has been a faculty member at Spelman. She became college organist in 1955 and twice chaired the Music Department. She played for the community when Martin Luther King, Jr. lay in state in Sisters Chapel in 1968.
DOROTHY HEIGHT: Dorothy Height, chairman of the board, National Council of Negro Women, said she first met and heard Coretta Scott King at one of King’s Freedom Concerts at Town Hall in New York City.
SHERRY FRANK: Sherry Frank, executive director of the American Jewish Committee’s Atlanta Chapter, said she worked with King on many programs to bring together blacks, Jews and other Americans.
THE REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Dr. Lowery, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization that became the backbone of the civil rights movement. A Methodist minister, Lowery now serves as the president emeritus of the SCLC.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH - Two years ago, Bush laid a wreath at the tomb of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to mark what would have been the civil rights leader’s 75th birthday. He met briefly with Coretta Scott King before laying the wreath of red, white and blue flowers against the white marble crypt.
GOV. SONNY PERDUE: Perdue extended to King’s family the honor of allowing her to be the first woman and the first African-American to lie in state at the Capitol. Perdue and First Lady Mary Perdue had met King on several occassions.
ATLANTA MAYOR SHIRLEY FRANKLIN: Coretta Scott King was among the notables who attended the inauguration of Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin. Franklin, along with Gov. Sonny Perdue, received King’s casket at the state Capitol on Saturday.
ZANELE M. MBEKI: Mbeki is the wife of the president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki. For many years, King was a leader in the fight to end apartheid in South Africa.
FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: In 2003, King and former president Jimmy Carter unveiled an outdoor exhibition highlighting the work of both Carter and Dr. King. Both Dr. King and Carter are Nobel laureates.
FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: When he was president and vice-president, the elder Bush participated in ceremonies to honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and met with Mrs. King several times.
FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: During his presidency, Bill Clinton met several times with Coretta Scott King. Clinton marched with King and other civil rights leaders in 2000 to commemorate the thirty-fifth anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery.
SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Sen. Clinton also met with King on several occassions while she was First Lady.
ATTALLAH SHABAZZ: The eldest daughter of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, better known as Malcolm X, and his wife Betty Shabazz. Atallah Shabazz has been a close friend of Yolanda King and the family since 1979.
JESSE HILL JR.: Jesse Hill was the third president of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company. Hill became one of the leading voices in Atlanta for various civil rights activities.
CAROLE HOOVER: A longtime board member of the King Center and friend of the King family, Hoover also is past president of the Greater Cleveland Growth Association.
JUDGE WILLIAM S. SESSIONS: Sessions, a former federal prosecutor, federal judgem and director of the FBI. Sessions was a member of the King Federal Holiday Commission.
MR. CHARLES RACHAEL: Charles Rachael, a former Crips member, became an advocate for peace and has worked with many grass roots organizations to curb gang violence. He was invited to Washington D.C. to meet President Clinton in 1993 during the inauguration.
JEFF MAJORS: Majors, a harpist, played at a ceremony for former Washington DC mayor Marion Barry at which Coretta Scott King commended the mayor for his involvement in the early days of the movement.
EDYTHE SCOTT BAGLEY: Mrs. King’s sister.
CHRISTINE KING FARRIS: King’s sister-in-law, Martin Luther King Jr.’s sister and author of the book, “My Brother Martin.�
NAOMI BARBER KING: King’s sister-in-law and wife of the late civil rights activist Rev. A. D. King, Martin Luther King’s brother.
CHRISTINE OSBURN JACKSON: Christine Osburn Jackson, King’s cousin.
EDITH SAVAGE-JENNINGS: A longtime friend of Coretta Scott King dating to 1957 when the two were introduced while Martin Luther King Jr. was speaking at a Trenton civil rights rally.
BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Senior Pastor of the Potter’s House in Dallas, Texas. The megachurch boasts a membership of 30,000. Jakes said he helped arrange King’s final trip to a hospital in Mexico.
MICHAEL BOLTON: Bolton, a performing artists, wrote a song in tribute to Coretta, “The Courage in Your Eyes,� when she invited him to speak and perform at a 2005 event in her honor.
REV. DR. JOSEPH ROBERTS: The former pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
REV. OTIS MOSS JR.: The Rev. Otis Moss was inspired by Coretta Scott King when he visited her two weeks ago in Atlanta. Moss, the pastor of Cleveland’s Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, fought alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife in the battle for civil rights,
FATHER MICHAEL PFLEGER: Leads St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church in Chicago with a predominantly African-American congregation. Coretta Scott King spoke at his church several times throughout the years. He was keynote speaker at the 2003 annual commemoration of King’s birth in Atlanta and credits Dr. King for inspiring him to enter the ministry.:
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: The longtime Democratic senator from Massachusetts knew has known the King family for decades.
U.S. REP. JOHN CONYERS: The Democrat from Michigan introduced the bill calling for a holiday commemorating Dr. King four days after his assassination. He and King worked tirelessly to achieve that goal; fifteen years later President Ronald Reagan signed the law designating the third Monday of every January, near King’s Jan. 15 birthday, a federal holiday. By 2000, it was also a state holiday in all 50 states.
STEVIE WONDER: The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change awarded musician and singer Stevie Wonder with its annual Salute to Greatness award in 2001. King praised Wonder at the dinner.
MAYA ANGELOU: Poet and one of King’s dearest friends.
ANDREW YOUNG: A longtime friend of the King family, Young was an activist during the civil rights movement. He later became mayor of Atlanta and served as a United States ambassador during the Carter administration.
BEBE AND CECE WINANS: Gospel singers and members of the Winans family, the first family of gospel. Delores and David Winans are known as Mom and Pop Winans.
BERNICE A. KING: The youngest child of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, Bernice King is an elder at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
DR. ROBERT SCHULLER: Schuller, the founder and pastor emeritus of the Crystal Cathedral in California, knew King for many years. Their paths crossed many times, including the 1978 funeral of former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and a 1987 King Holiday celebration in Atlanta when Mrs. King invited Rev. Schuller to speak.
Research assistants Alice Wertheim, Sharon Gaus, Joni Zeccola, Richard Hallman and staff writer Sonji Jacobs contributed to this report.
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“Oprah” to air at 12:05 a.m.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The King funeral went over time, forcing WSB-TV to drop “Oprah” at 4 p.m., as well as “General Hospital” at 3 p.m. For true addicts, you can tape the Faith Hill/Tim McGraw “Oprah” episode tonight at 12:05 a.m., followed by “General Hospital” at 1:05 a.m., “All My Children at 2:05 a.m. and “One Life to Live” at 3:05 a.m.
Remarks by former President Bill Clinton
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bishop, President, Mrs. Bush, Yolonda, Martin, Dexter, Rev. — we are honored to be here…
I don’t want to forget that there’s a woman in there. Not a symbol. But a real woman who lived and breathed, and got angry and got hurt, and had dreams and disappointments. I don’t want us to forget that.
I was sitting here thinking, ‘I wonder what her kids are thinking about now. I wonder if they’re thinking about what I was thinking about at my mother’s funeral. I wonder if they’re thinking about how she used to read books with them, or when she told them Bible stories, or what she said to them when their daddy got killed.’
We’re here to honor a person. Fifty-four years ago, her about-to-be husband said that he was looking for a woman with character, intelligence, personality, and beauty, and she sure fit the bill. And I have to say, when she was over 75, I thought she still fit the bill pretty good.
But I think that’s important — this is a woman, as well as a symbol, as well as the embodiment of her husband’s legacy, and the developer of her own.
The second point I want to make is the most important day in her life for everyone of us here at this moment in this church except when she embraced her faith.
The next most important day was April the 5th, 1968, the day after her husband was killed. She had to say, ‘what am I going to do with the rest of my life?’
We would’ve all forgiven her, even honored her, if she’d said ‘I have stumbled on enough stoney roads, I have been beaten by enough bitter rods, I have endured enough danger and snares, I’m going home to raise my kids, I wish you all well.’
None of us, nobody, could’ve condemned that decision, but instead, she went to Memphis, the scene of the worst nightmare of her life. And led the march for those poor, hard working garbage workers…
That’s the most important thing for us because what really matters if you believe all of this stuff was in the plan, is, what are we going to do with the rest of our lives?
Her children, they know they have to carry the legacy of their father and their mother now. We all clap for that, but they’ve got to go home and live with it. That’s a terrible burden. That is a terrible burden. You should pray for them, and support them, and help them. That is a burden to bear. It’s a lot harder to be them than it was for us to be us growing up. Don’t you think it wasn’t. It may have been glorious. It may have been wonderful. But it’s not easy.
So what will happen to the legacy of Martin Luther King and Coretta King? Will it continue to stand for peace and non-violence and anti-poverty and civil rights and human rights?
Atlanta, what is your responsibility for the future of the King Center? What are you going to do? I read in the newspaper coming down here that there are more rich black folks in this county than any one in America except for Mongtomgery County, Md.
What are we gonna do? This is the first day of the rest of our lives. We haven’t finshed our long journey home. The one thing I always admired about Dr. King, and Coretta, once I got to know her especially, is how they’ve embraced causes that were almost surely lost right alongside causes that they knew if they worked hard enough, they could actually win. They understood that the difficulty of success does not relieve one’s obligation to try.
So all of us have to remember that. What are we going to do with the rest of our lives? Do you want to treat our friend Coretta like a model? Then model her behavior.
We’re always going to have our political differences. We’re always going to have things we can do, and I must say, this has been brilliantly executed, and enormously both moving and entertaining moments. But we’re in the house of the Lord. And most of us are too afraid to live the life we oughtta live because we have forgotten the promise that was made to Martin Luther King, to Coretta Scott King, and all of us, most beautifully for me stated in Isiah, “Fear not, I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine.”
We don’t have to be afraid. We can follow in her steps. We can honor Dr. King’s sacrifice. We can help his children fulfill their legacy.
Everybody who believes that the promise of America is for every American. Everybody who believes that everybody in America is caught up in what he so eloquently called the ‘inescapable web of mutuality.’ Everyone of us in the way of all of the children of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King. And I, for one, am grateful for her life and her friendship.
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Remarks by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bishop Long, President and Mrs. Bush, President and first ladies all, distinguished guests, Yolonda, Martin, Dexter, Bernice, Mrs. Christine Ferris, and the entire King family,
My presence here today is the result of many things and many people, not the least of which are my mother, my family, and my political mentors Andrew Young and the late Maynard Jackson.
However, my presence here today as Mayor of the city of Atlanta is equally a living witness and testimony to the voices of a freedom choir. A chorus made up of Septima Clark, Alberta King, Bernice Scott, Daisy Bates, Ella Baker, Jean Young, Mary McCloud Bethune, Constance Motley, Margie Pitts-Haines, Bertha Mae Carter, Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ethel Mae Mathews, Dorothy Bolton, Fannie Lou Hamer, and the newest member, Coretta Scott King.
I am here because they lived, and I am here because they struggled. Mrs. King was a trained and gifted vocalist. And she joined this freedom choir. This costellation of guardian angels equipped with her own song.
I and we should be greatful that Coretta’s extraordinary voice never trembled in the face of intimidation, evil or violent attacks. Her voice was marked by an elocution that was full of clarity on the causes of racism, the senselessness of war, and the solutions for poverty.
Her resonance had international range. From Sunset Boulevard in Atlanta to the rice patties in Saigon, from the tin-topped roofs of Soweto to the bomb shelters of Baghdad… She sang for liberation. She sang for those who had no earthly reason to sing a song.
Mrs. King’s commitment to struggle for freedom forced her to occasionally sing acapella, and too often, solo. Widowed with four children to raise, she committed herself to singing louder and more often.
But mother Coretta made certain homework was checked, lunches were packed, and her children were safe. Four days after her husband was assasinated, with her children in tow, she travelled to Memphis. She addressed those in attendance, and the nation, describing within her a propelling moral force and an urge to move forward.
In her words she said, “I am impelled to come.” Concerned not only about the Negro poor, but the poor all over this nation, and all over the world.
The last stanza, and the highest note of Coretta King’s freedom song remains to be sung. She’s gathered us here today from all walks of life, and all persuasions, to list our voices in song of freedom, equality, social and economic justice. Not just for our own sake, but for the sake of the children the world over. Who among us will join the freedom choir? Who among us will sing Coretta’s song, with courage and conviction, to smother the cries of hatred, economic exploitation, poverty, and political disenfranchisement? For whom does the bell toll? And tolls for you and for me. Thank you Coretta.
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Tuesday service puts politics on hold
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Two distinct memorial services honored the life of the late Coretta Scott King – a study in contrasts that both unveiled complementary, but also contradictory, aspects of the first lady of the Civil Rights movement.
On Tuesday, the official, ceremonial service at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in DeKalb County included Democrats and Republicans, Christians and Jews, presidents, current and former leaders.
But Monday evening’s service at Ebenezer Baptist Church held its own alternative service as an homage to the Civil Rights movement. Leaders who had not been invited to be part of the official service used the pulpit of Ebenezer to critique policies of President George W. Bush and to urge believers to continue fighting against violence, discrimination and poverty.
On Tuesday, President Bush was a speaker, and the overwhelming tone of the speakers was respectful of the differences that existed in the church with 10,000 people in attendance.
“Last night was the service of the people who marched, who suffered with Mrs. King and bled with Martin Luther King,� U.S. Rep. John Lewis said Tuesday as a hero of the Civil Rights movement who spoke Monday night, but was not on the New Birth program. “The foot soldiers were there last night. Today is a different climate, a different environment. I think last night was much more authentic. It represented the soul of the movement.�
The fact that the official service was held at New Birth and not Ebenezer, where Mrs. King was a member and where her husband and father-in-law preached, did not sit well with some.
“Only one place is suitable to send Mrs. King home, and that’s Ebenezer, the spiritual home going, a sacred place at this sacred hour,� said Rev. Markel Hutchins, head of the National Youth Connection. “This was indeed her spiritual home.�
New Birth, which can hold five times more people than Ebenezer, is where Mrs. King’s youngest child, Bernice, is an elder.
Xernona Clayton, who participated in Monday’s memorial and attended Tuesday’s, compared the two services. “Last night (Monday) was Coretta’s inner core. Today, this represents the broad spectrum of Coretta’s love. Both sessions were appropriate. We are not here today to bash anyone. This is a welcome session, more inclusive. And the children planned this one.�
The comments Monday night were far more cutting.
Civil Rights leader C.T.Vivian emphasized that Ebenezer is the house “of three generations of the King family.�
“As we think of Coretta, if she were here right now, she would say the president of the United States is the direct opposite to Martin Luther King,� Vivian said. “It is in fact our public policy that makes people poor…. Nonviolence is the root of the matter. If we forget that, we might as well forget the movement.�
Other speakers were even more pointed.
“If we let the dream busters tell us about the dream, we will end up with a nightmare,� Sharpton said Monday night. “How can you see weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that weren’t there but couldn’t see a hurricane in New Orleans?�
New Birth’s service did bring up the hard issues, but in a more subtle way. Former President Jimmy Carter said the struggle for equal rights is not over. “All we have to do is remember the color of the faces in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, those who were most devastated by Katrina,� he said.
Neither Rev. Jesse Jackson or Sharpton were invited to speak at the New Birth service.
“At Rosa Park’s funeral, all of us were there,� Sharpton said. “The difference was the presence of the President. Mrs. King’s funeral for Dr. King was a movement funeral. We went to Ebenezer. This is a much different flavor.�
On Monday, Jackson openly questioned why President Bush would attend. “I’m not sure the Pharaoh went to Moses’ funeral,� he said. “Mr. Bush, honor Dr. King. Feed the hungry in the Katrina zone. Remember the homeless and helpless.�
Rev. Joseph Lowery, who was supposed to speak Monday actually saved his strong messages for Tuesday’s program. “Presidents and governors come to mourn and praise, but in the morning will words become deeds that meet needs?� Lowery said. “We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction, and we know there are weapons of misdirection right down here.�
Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, who — with Christine King Farris and Ebenezer Pastor emeritus Joseph Roberts Jr. — participated in both services, said the Bible is much more complex, remembering that the Pharaoh’s daughter raised Moses.
“There’s a lot of good. That’s the key to non-violent power,� Young said. “Empires that are capable of evil are empires that are capable of good.�
Young said both services portrayed Mrs. King.
“They are both real. Yesterday was a movement service. It was like a mass meeting. It unfortunately was too little about Coretta, but it was about carrying on the movement,� he said. “Everything we have said about Coretta has been the truth, but she still made sure Nixon helped build the King Center, and she still got Reagan to sign the King holiday. She was always so humble and graceful, and her protest was so pure. That’s why it was so effective.�
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T.D. Jakes on meeting King
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
T.D. Jakes, Senior Pastor, The Potter’s House, flew Bernice and Mrs. King to Mexico on his private jet.
“From a distance, just watching her. I knew she was a classy great woman.
“When I got the call that she had had a stroke, I came and had prayer with her before she passed. Her faith was vibrant.
“She was able to preserve. She did it with grace.
“I expected to see somebody who looked like they had been ill. She was polished. Her hair was in place. Her nails were done.
“Her and Dr. King laid a foundation that all of us stand on. Of course the work is not over but the foundation has been laid.
“I know what it is like to lose both of your parents and feel like children again.”
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Political jabs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The funeral tributes for Coretta Scott King took a twist toward political rally when the Rev. Joseph Lowery criticized President Bush’s policies on Iraq and military spending.
Former President Jimmy Carter also took a swipe at the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
Lowery, the 85-year-old friend and former lieutenant of Martin Luther King Jr., launched his criticism with a smile as Bush and First Lady Laura Bush sat behind him.
Lowery, who also co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King, asked the capacity crowd what happens after the speeches end — “where words become deeds that meet needs?â€?
Lowery was reciting a poetic tribute to Coretta King, recounting her battles against homophobia and racial discrimination, before pausing to apologize to poet Maya Angelou, apparently for his prose.
The church tittered with laughter. Then Lowery dug in.
“We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction,� Lowery said. His words were met by “oohs� and a long, loud applause. “But Coretta knew and we knew there were weapons of misdirection right here.
“Millions without health insurance, poverty abound. For war, billions more, but no more for the poor.�
Lowery finished his tribute to King talking about her children –- Bernice, Dexter, Martin III and Yolanda, who sat on the front pew. He turned away from the podium to a thunderous applause.
Bush immediately rose to his feet to be the first to greet Lowery with a hug. Both were smiling.
Carter spoke about dedicating a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. at the state Capitol in 1974 when he was Georgia’s governor. The Ku Klux Klan protested outside, he recalled.
The former president then noted Martin and Coretta King were “violated� by “government wiretapping and government surveillance,� a thinly veiled reference to the current administration’s wiretapping program.
But the biggest dig from Carter came later when he said Americans need to be reminded “the struggle for equal rights is not over.”
“We only have to recall the color of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi,â€? Carter said, pausing for a long applause, “those who were most devastated by Katrina, to know there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans.â€?
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Church hats dot sea of mourners
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Among the mourners at the Tuesday funeral of Coretta Scott King were several ladies who wore glorious church hats — often called “crownsâ€? in the African-American community.
These wide-brimmed beauties and jeweled pillboxes, usually cut from felt or straw, can be trimmed with flowers, bows, ribbons or feathers.
In many churches, a woman would not be considered “dressed” without a beautiful hat on a Sunday morning. Millinery designer Adrian Dana, who just moved to Buckhead from New York, handcrafts hats from felt, feathers and jewels for clients all over the country. He picked up the trend at an early age, since his mother — who like King, was the wife of a minister — always wears hats to church.
“All my customers want to look like queens, so I give them crowns to wear,” said the designer in an earlier interview.
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On Air Force One
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Coretta Scott King’s funeral Tuesday brought together people from both sides of the political spectrum — even on Air Force One.
Joining President Bush and the first lady for the flight to Atlanta from Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Washington were their predecessors, former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Jokingly referred to by White House press secretary Scott McClellan as “the president’s brother,” the former president boarded the presidential airliner shortly before takeoff. His wife arrived separately, calling out, “Hi, Bill,” when she spotted him.
McClellan said the Clintons and Bushes chatted in the plane’s conference room during the flight. Despite partisan differences — including Hillary Clinton’s controversial recent comment that the GOP has run the U.S. House of Representatives like a “plantation,” a comment Laura Bush labeled “ridiculous” — Bill Clinton has been friendly with, and supportive of, the president, and has worked closely with Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, on hurricane and tsunami relief efforts.
Another critic of Hillary Clinton, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, also a passenger on Air Force One. He said he too had spent a few minutes talking to her, discussing mutual friends.
Chatting with reporters aboard the plane, a frail-looking Bill Clinton, who underwent heart bypass surgery last September, shared his memories of King.
“I have two sets of memories,” Clinton sad. “I have the memories of our personal contacts which were many and interesting when I was president and afterward. And then of course I have the memories of her when I was a very young man and Dr. King was living and then as she immediately made a decision to carry on his legacy and that work after he was killed.
“One of the most vivid things to me, although almost nobody would have mentioned it, is that less than a week after he was shot, she and her children went to Memphis and led that march that he was down there to lead,” he said. “And, you know, she would have been forgiven, I think by everyone concerned, if she had chosen to be a mother and focus on her own life. Instead, it was her cause too and she continued it and broadened it, not just on civil rights but also the campaign against poverty, the campaign for human rights, the campaign for peace. And she continued to do it throughout her whole life.”
He also said that despite the loss of King, the dream of racial and social progress held dear by her husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is far from dead.
“Her daughter Bernice is going to give the eulogy today. And when she speaks, you won’t think that, you’ll think it’s alive and well,” he said. “She’s an astonishing preacher. And I think that, in a larger sense, there are millions of people all across America that are the children of Martin and Coretta King, whose whole lives were shaped by their passion for people, opportunity and justice, and their commitment to nonviolent change and by not being discouraged in the face of repeated disappointment. Just because you try and fail to do something, or you think you might fail, doesn’t relieve you of the obligation to try and that’s the way they always lived.”
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Crowds outside church strain to hear
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
About 200 people who could not get into the service had to stand behind police barricades set up in front of the church. They strained to hear the speakers and music from inside as it was amplified out of doors on loudspeakers, but the speaker sound was frequently inaudible, frustrating the crowd.
One woman had a small television she carried around, adjusting the antenna to try to get a signal.
Frankie Walden, 38, of Norcross was upset he couldn’t get into the service after waiting in the cold for four hours. “We want to see her; they’re stopping us,” he said, gesturing at the barricades. He described Mrs. King as “a mother, a pioneer, a queen; she was all of that.”
Pablo Perez, a chaplain at Fort Benning, came all the way from Columbus to see Mrs. King but arrived late, several hours after the funeral began at noon. But he said he didn’t mind. He just wanted to be part of of the day, he said.
About two dozen limos that carried politicians, celebrities and other VIPs to the service were lined up outside the church. One chauffeur, Rodney McGrady, 49, drove singer Michael Bolton and Nicolette Sheridan of “Desperate Housewives” fame to the service. McGrady said he had no trouble getting to the church.”We came the back way,” he said.”That’s what I do.” His personal take on the funeral? “It’s somber but a celebration of sorts. Coretta has been reunited with Martin Luther King.”
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Text of President Bush’s remarks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To the King Family, distinguished guests and fellow citizens. We gather in God’s house, in God’s presence, to honor God’s servant, Coretta Scott King. Her journey was long, and only briefly with a hand to hold. But now she leans on everlasting arms. I’ve come today to offer the sympathy of our entire nation at the passing of a woman who worked to make our nation whole.
Americans knew her husband only as a young man. We knew Mrs. King in all the seasons of her life — and there was grace and beauty in every season. As a great movement of history took shape, her dignity was a daily rebuke to the pettiness and cruelty of segregation. When she wore a veil at 40 years old, her dignity revealed the deepest trust in God and His purposes. In decades of prominence, her dignity drew others to the unfinished work of justice. In all her years, Coretta Scott King showed that a person of conviction and strength could also be a beautiful soul. This kind and gentle woman became one of the most admired Americans of our time. She is rightly mourned, and she is deeply missed.
Some here today knew her as a girl, and saw something very special long before a young preacher proposed. She once said, “Before I was a King, I was a Scott.” And the Scotts were strong, and righteous, and brave in the face of wrong. Coretta eventually took on the duties of a pastor’s wife, and a calling that reached far beyond the doors of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
In that calling, Dr. King’s family was subjected to vicious words, threatening calls in the night, and a bombing at their house. Coretta had every right to count the cost, and step back from the struggle. But she decided that her children needed more than a safe home — they needed an America that upheld their equality, and wrote their rights into law. And because this young mother and father were not intimidated, millions of children they would never meet are now living in a better, more welcoming country.
In the critical hours of the civil rights movement, there were always men and women of conscience at the heart of the drama. They knew that old hatreds ran deep. They knew that nonviolence might be answered with violence. They knew that much established authority was against them. Yet they also knew that sheriffs and mayors and governors were not ultimately in control of events; that a greater authority was interested, and very much in charge.
The God of Moses was not neutral about their captivity. The God of Isaiah and the prophets was still impatient with injustice. And they knew that the Son of God would never leave them or forsake them.
But some had to leave before their time — and Dr. King left behind a grieving widow and little children. Rarely has so much been asked of a pastor’s wife, and rarely has so much been taken away. Years later, Mrs. King recalled, “I would wake up in the morning, have my cry, then go in to them. The children saw me going forward.” Martin Luther King, Jr. had preached that unmerited suffering could have redemptive power.
Little did he know that this great truth would be proven in the life of the person he loved the most. Others could cause her sorrow, but no one could make her bitter. By going forward with a strong and forgiving heart, Coretta Scott King not only secured her husband’s legacy, she built her own. Having loved a leader, she became a leader. And when she spoke, America listened closely, because her voice carried the wisdom and goodness of a life well lived.
In that life, Coretta Scott King knew danger. She knew injustice. She knew sudden and terrible grief. She also knew that her Redeemer lives. She trusted in the name above every name. And today we trust that our sister Coretta is on the other shore — at peace, at rest, at home. May God bless you, and may God bless our country.
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Notable figures attending
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Those now at the church include:
Mrs. King’s pallbearers:
Dr. Arthur Bagley
Auturo Bagley
Howard Dent
Isaac Farris Sr.
Isaac Farris Jr.
Derek B. King Sr.
Philip Osburn Mott
Roland Osburn III
Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Malaak Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X
Judge William Sessions, former FBI director
Maya Angelou
Dr. Joseph Lowery
Stevie Wonder
Dr. Dorothy Height, National Council of Negro Women
Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin
Kweisi Mfume, former NAACP president
Sen. Barack Obama
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Actress Nicollette Sheridan
Singer Michael Bolton
Atlanta City Council president Lisa Borders
V-103 radio personality Frank Ski
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Sen. John Kerry
Sen. Bill Frist
Howard Dean, Democratic Party chairman
Former mayor Bill Campbell and wife Sharon
Valerie Jackson, widow of late Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue
Georgia Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor
Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox
President George W. Bush and Laura Bush
Former president Jimmy Carter
Former president Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton
Former president George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush
Andrew Young and his brother Dr Walter Young
Hank and Billye Aaron
Comic and actor Chris Tucker
Former surgeon general Dr. David Satcher
Former Gov. Roy Barnes, Marie Barnes
Rev. Jesse Jackson
Al Sharpton
Dick Gregory
State Sen. Vincent Fort
DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones
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The latest from the funeral
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
President George W. Bush was the first tribute speaker at the funeral, addressing the congregation starting at 1 p.m.
“I’ve come today to offere the sympathy of our entire nation,” he said. Bush spoke for about eight minutes, evoking Moses, Isaiah and Jesus.
“Coretta Scott King not only upheld her husband’s legacy, she built her own,” he said. “When she spoke, America listened closely, because her voice carried the goodness and wisdom of a life well lived.”
“Thanks to her, millions of children are now living in a better country.”
Bush was followed by Gov. Sonny Perdue, and then by Atlanta Mayor Shgirley Franklin, who wore a huge red rose in her left lapel. She built on Mrs. King’s early career as a trained opera singer and her lifelong love of music, saying that she had joined a choir, a “constellation of guardian angels.”
“She sang for liberation. She sang for those who had no earthly reason to sing a song,” Franklin said.
Scheduled for three hours, the funeral may last longer, with 40 speakers scheduled. Thousands couldn’t make it as far more people wanted in than there were seats. The sanctuary capacity is about 10,000, with the Family Life center taking at least 500 for overflow.
At noon, the choir sang several hymns, including “Amazing Grace,” “How Great Thou Art,” “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” commonly sung at African-American funerals. All networks are using a common feed with what appear to be three cameras. Al Sharpton, John Lewis, T.D. Jakes and Andrew Young were among those seated at the front.
At 12:35 p.m., the King family arrives to applause, followed moments later by former presidents, Jimmy Carter, George Bush and Bill Clinton, along with Pres. Bush and Laura Bush.
Bishop Eddie Long did the introductions. “This is a worship, This is a celebration. This is a moment that we give honor to God,” he said.
“My job is to make sure this is over, before Jesus returns. … The destiny, vision and dream are still alive. We are celebrating. She wants us, after this day, to get up and carry the torch.”
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Inside New Birth
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Inside New Birth at 11:15 p.m., Sabrena Brown, 37, of Atlanta, was sitting in the balcony.
She noticed Jesse Jackson on the floor alongside Al Sharpton and Bill Campbell. “I’m here to show my support for the fight Coretta Scott King carried on,â€? she said.
She brought her 13-year-old son, James, saying, “He’ll appreciate it down the line.â€?
Then she went back to celebrity spotting. “There’s Bishop Tutu.â€? She realized she was wrong about Tutu but stayed busy scanning the crowd. “We got the binoculars for a backup,â€? said Brown.
Bernice Taylor, 39, sitting nearby, said she felt a debt to the King family. “I feel they paved the way, making it easier for African Americans to get jobs, voting and education.�
She was proud that four presidents would be honoring her. “All of America should honor her.�
Angela Booker of Duluth brought the twin daughters of a friend.
“Now you know why it’s important to be here,â€? she told them. “She wanted everybody to be treated fairly.â€?
Then one of the girls, 12-year-old Kristyn Stamback said, “it’s just so awesome to to see so many people here, not just blacks but people of all races.â€?
Stephen Schwerner, brother of civil rights martyr Michael Schwerner, attended with a delegation from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, King’s alma mater.
“She came out in 1982 as commencement speaker,� said Schwerner, who was dean at the time. “The very first thing she said when she saw me was ask about my parents, which was very touching.�
In the hour prior to the start of the service, a who’s who of civil rights, political, sports and entertainment legends, gathered in front of King’s casket. Telling stories. Laughing. Hugging. Crying.
Here are excerpts from interviews:
Myrlie Evers “She, Betty Shabazz and I were very dear friends and we called ourselves members of a club no one would wish to join. I knew her as the strong, focused determined woman she was. She was always full of love and forgiveness. I don’t think there is anyone else in life or death who could have brought us all together. I am going to miss her. I love her dearly. I do feel loneliness. Betty’s gone. Coretta’s gone. I’m still here.”
Lerone Bennett, historian, Ebony Magazine “She was one of that long line of tough, gentle, indomitable black women like Shirley Chisholm, Harriett Tubman, Shirley Franklin, who made us, black and white, male and female what we are. She was a great example of a wife in history and a mother in history who became history. She wanted to be a concert singer and history, which know us better than we know ourselves, put her on a bigger stage.”
Cicely Tyson “Our relationship took on a special meaning when I played her in ‘King. She was extraordinary She invited me to live with her family. I am deeply crushed right now. The last sixth months we have lost Shirley Chisholm, C. Delores Tucker, Constance Baker Motley and Rosa Parks. These are the women that nurtured me. They were there when I needed then. When I was a desperately shy actress, they wrapped me in a cocoon of love. This is so painful.
Bruce Gordon, NAACP “This is a celebration of a very important life in the history of the civil rights movement. But we must not dwell on celebration and lose focus on the work that needs to be done. She did her job, now it is time for us to do our job.”
Vernon Jones “We are very pound and honored here in DeKalb to host the homegoing of Coretta Scott King. The World has come to DeKalb County to celebrate. She was a wife, mother, and mentor. I called her a humble public servant”
Bill Campbell “I had the privilege of working with Mrs. King for 20 years. She was a dear friend and a civil rights icon. She also represented for women. She could be a strong mother. It’s fitting that this year Rosa Parks, Constance baker Motley and Mrs. King – important women in the movement have died.”
Howard Dean “Coretta Scott King is one of the most important civil rights figures in history. She carried on Dr. King’s legacy with a dignified bearing and measure.”
Jesse Jackson “This is the accumulation of 50 years of struggle. Even in passing, the struggle continues. Her role as his companion and leader show a tremendous pace on how to handle struggle in a grand manner.”
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Mall ramps up to serve mourners
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Patricia Elmore Edge, general manager at the mall where people lined up for shuttles to Coretta Scott King’s viewing and funeral, said the food court opened its doors at 7:15 a.m. to allow people to get warm and use the restrooms. Businesses began opening at 8 a.m.
Joe Watkins, who owns a Chick-fil-A at the Mall at Stonecrest, said he’d doubled his staff to 10 and served 300 biscuits this morning.
“On an ordinary Tuesday, we might see 40 to 50 people from the time we open until 11 a.m,� he said.
Edge estimated the viewing and funeral crowd took about two thirds of the malls 6,000 parking spaces.
She said mall officials tried to keep most of those cars parked on the south side of the mall, where they wouldn’t be immediately seen from 1-20 and might not deter shoppers.
Just before noon, she said it was too soon to estimate how the day’s events had impacted mall businesses.
Two store clerks said they had not made a single sale, but that wasn’t neccessarily unusual for a Tuesday morning.
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Young, Sharpton hold court
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Before the service Andrew Young and Al Sharpton held impromtu press conferences outside New Birth to speak about Mrs. King.
Inside, the Rev. Jesse Jackson stood in the center of the sanctuary greeting people. He has no role in the funeral program.
Howard Dean, Chairman of Democratic Party spoke with DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones, and telling an aide that Jones was the first man who endorsed him in the state of Georgia during Dean’s campaign for president. Jones responded “I still support you.”
CEO of Coca-Cola Neville Isdell spoke of Mrs. King saying, “For me this is a personal journey. Don’t forget I’m a child of the 60s. I ws a student activist in south aftrica. I’m here to pay personal tribute.”
Also in attendance: former mayor Bill Campbell and wife Sharon is in attendance; Valerie Jackson, the widow of late Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson; former Gov. Roy Barnes; Georgia gubernatorial candidates Secretary of State Cathy Cox, and Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor.
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‘Clear the aisles’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 11:44 a.m. an announcement is made to “clear the aisles� as the King family is outside, waiting to be brought in. The choir, wearing purple robes are seated.
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Footsore and heartbroken
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Shonna Hall, a Stone Mountain resident, was among hundreds of people turned away after waiting in line at Stonecrest mall for a shuttle to the funeral for Coretta Scott King.
Hall was sitting on a bench inside the mall with a cup coffee and her feet slipped out of her shoes. She said she, her husband and their three children waited for 2 hours and 15 minutes until officials announced that no one else would be allowed on a bus to the funeral at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
Hall, who was near the front of the line, said she was “very, very disappointed.�
“Obviously, they let in the people who walked to the church,� she said.
She said she would go home and watch the service on television, even though she got off work at 7:30 a.m. and usually sleeps in the morning. She said it was important to stay awake today because “for my generation Martin Luther King Jr. had already passed. The only other legacy we had to live up to was Coretta Scott King.
“I was raised not far from the King Center, but I never saw her. I never met her. And, I hate that.”
Chris Lawrence, 43, of Snellville, was leaving the church at about 12:15. He got to Stoncrest at 9 a.m. to ride the bus, but he said the buses were too crowded. So he and other people decided to walk from Stonecrest but was turned away at the church. “It’s a mess. That’s why I’m walking back now,” he said. “We couldn’t even get to the church.
Rolanda Fowler, 39, of Lawrenceville, was with her sons Amir, 14 and Ahmad, 13. They also walked from Stonecrest and couldnt get into the church. “I wish they would have told me, because I could have been home watching this with my family.”
At the overflow site at New Birth's Abundant Life Center, several hundred people watched the program on three screens.Permalink | Categories: Coretta Scott King: The scene
Four presidents in attendance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Four U.S. presidents are now in attendance at the funeral service for Coretta Scott King.
Former President Jimmy Carter arrived first.
At about 11:30 a.m., former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush arrived in two limousines and quickly entered New Birth Missionary Baptist.
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43 vehicles leave King home for funeral
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A procession of 43 vehicles left the King home on Sunset Ave. in Atlanta at 11:05 a.m.
Sixteen Atlanta police motorcycles led the procession, which was carrying family members to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church for the funeral for Coretta Scott King.
Red, pink and yellow roses had been placed against a lamp post in front of the house.
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A lonely area at Atlanta’s airport
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Officials at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport set up a waiting area for dignitaries flying in to attend Coretta Scott King’s funeral services. But it was empty most of the morning.
“We did it as a courtesy, and only a handful of people showed up,� said airport spokeswoman Sterling Payne. “We had a group of city council members from Detroit.�
Other than that, the snacks and drinks at the second-floor reception area went unused.
“We did the same thing when Maynard Jackson passed away,� Payne said.
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Those who waited in vain aren’t happy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When organizers cut off shuttles from Stonecrest mall to Coretta Scott King’s funeral, those left waiting in line were not happy. There was a feeling among those waiting on the shuttle to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church that they were short-changed by the decision to let mourners who walked up to the church inside.
Only about 35 buses had left the mall for the church when the announcement was made that the church was full.
One of those left behind at the mall was Earl Maiden, who said, “I left Birmingham at 4:15 [CST] this morning and have been standing here.â€? Maiden was so unhappy he was trying to organize a march from the mall to the church.Also near the front of the line were Cathy Butler and three children she had brought with her at 6 a.m. One of them, Keandi Gibson, said, “We’ve been waiting in this line a very long time and have been here since, like, 6. They’re talking about there are so many people at the church.”
“We’re freezing,” he said.
Keandi had attended the viewing Monday night at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and Butler said they waited two hours in the rain for that but they were successful in getting in. Butler, a pastor who recently moved to Atlanta from Ohio, said she and others at the mall had been told they had to ride the shuttle bus and would not be allowed in if they tried to enter the church property on foot.
Hundreds of mourners unable to get on shuttle buses before they quit running set out at 11 a.m. to make the 3-mile walk from the mall to the church.
But by 10:30 a.m., many of those waiting in line at Stonecrest mall for a shuttle to Coretta Scott King’s funeral had begun to leave - - discouraged they weren’t going to get in.
One who left was William Ellis who had driven with Robert Williams from Houston, Texas. They said they would immediately begin the 12-hour trip back home.“I’m not disappointed,â€? Williams said. He and Ellis viewed Mrs. King’s body Monday at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. “I’m more excited that so many people came out,â€? he added.
One of those who said she would not leave, even though she was near the end of the line, was Tara Stone of Lawrenceville. Stone recently had surgery on both feet and was leaning on a walker. She said she had been standing since 7 a.m.
“My feet are numb and they are swelling,” Stone said. “But, nope, I won’t give up. She was a great person and there used to be a time when we couldn’t stand here at all.”
Rachelle Spell of Decatur waited in line with her children, Jackson Spell, 13, and Rosalind Spell, 10.
“I wanted to bring my children to pay respects,� said Spell, who pulled them out of the Decatur schools, which stayed open today.
Spell said she noticed how few white people were in line, but did not think that was a slight.
“I thought about being sensitive in coming. Everyone wants to be here — and who has the right to be here,â€? she said.
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President Bush arrives at airport
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An aircraft carrying President Bush landed at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport shortly after 11 a.m. He was accompanied by his wife, Laura, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former president Bill Clinton and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.
Former president George H.W. Bush, the president’s father, had arrived earlier and joined the group for the motorcade to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church for the funeral of Coretta Scott King.
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Funeral program features tributes, photos and family message
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The 28-page funeral program for Coretta Scott King is filled with dignitaries, family pictures and personal tributes, including a “Message of Gratitude� from King’s four children: Yolanda, Martin III, Dexter, and Bernice.
“To have had Coretta Scott King as a Mother, is to know unconditional love!” the letter reads. “Her love and memory will remain in our hearts and spirits forever — gently urging us to pursue God’s purpose for our lives.”
President Bush, Gov. Sonny Perdue, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and South Africa first lady Zanele Mbeki will give tributes to Coretta Scott King today.
Former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, along with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) also are listed in the funeral program as giving special tributes to King.
Bernice King, the youngest child of Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr., will deliver the eulogy.
Numerous other dignitaries, civil rights leaders, friends and family members will offer thoughts and memories of King and her legacy of civil rights activism.
The service will begin with a musical prelude to honor King, who studied music at the New England Conservatory and was known to have a warm soprano voice. Then, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church’s Bishop Eddie Long will open the service with a call to worship. After the opening prayer, opening song, and several Scripture readings, the president will give his tribute.
Other dignitaries who are listed in the program as scheduled to speak are: Dorothy Height, chairwoman of the National Council of Negro Women, Rev. Joseph Lowery, president emeritus of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Bishop T.D. Jakes, senior pastor of the Potter’s House in Dallas.
Stevie Wonder, Bebe Winans, and Michael Bolton are among singers in the program. Wonder is expected to perform “His Eye is on the Sparrow.� Poet Maya Angelou will offer a personal tribute.
The service, which begins at noon, is expected to last three hours. The pink front cover of the program reads, “Celebrating Her Spirit� and depicts a picture of King, smiling and looking confidently into the camera. A red rose graces the cover as well. The next page shows a famous photograph of King embracing and kissing her husband as he leaves court in Montgomery, Ala.. in 1956.
Some of the photos in the funeral program show King with her children, and with celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Venus and Serena Williams, Stevie Wonder. Other photos show King with her husband, participating in marches during the Civil Rights movement.
The program also includes King’s obituary, written tributes from the president and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, and an official proclamation from Gov. Sonny Perdue.
“We will miss her quiet, courageous activism and strength but her legacy and contributions to human rights and social change are timeless,” Franklin’s tribute reads. “A woman whose faith allowed her to stand for what was just and right, she spoke out against war in the name of peace; she cried out against discrimination in the name of equality and she changed the world in the name of freedom.”
The funeral program ends with a portrait of King with her four children, and a letter from Ms. Evelyn Dudley, one of King’s caretakers.
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Church full, shuttle lines closed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 10:45 a.m., officials cut off the line for shuttle buses from the Mall at Stonecrest for Coretta Scott King’s funeral at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
A man with a megaphone told the crowd, “We’re sorry, the church is full to capacity and they’re not letting anyone else in.”
At 11:15 a.m. mourners were being turned away from lots at Stonecrest Mall.
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‘Amazing Grace’ and a growing crowd
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hundreds of mourners abandoned their vehicles in nearby parking lots and walked down Evans Mill Road toward New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia.
The hopeful attendees are dressed in their Sunday best.
Thousands more funeral attendees and media are jammed in front of banks of metal detectors. “Everyone” take two steps back,” law enforcement officials instructed the crowd. At 10:35 a.m., the balcony at the church was filled. At 10:45 a.m. DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones arrived at the service. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton arrived shortly after.
Inside, a pianist played “Amazing Grace” as photos of Mrs. King with former President Clinton and Rosa Parks, and black and white baby photos of her flashed overhead on a massive screen. There are more than 20 chairs behind the pulpit for dignitaries.
Below, Mrs. King’s closed casket sat adorned with a mountain of pink and red roses on top.
Ushers in black and gold jackets and wearing white gloves stood in the aisles at attention.
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29 buses, hundreds of riders
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By 10:15 a.m. officials said 25 shuttle buses each carrying about 60 people had already left The Mall at Stonecrest for the journey to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and the noon funeral of Coretta Scott King.
There were four more buses in the parking lot waiting to load and thousands of folks bracing against the morning cold in huge lines that snaked around the mall parking lot.
Still, officials and witnesses said traffic continued to flow well despite the huge numbers of folks moving.
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Godfather of Soul sends flowers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Several dozen roses near the front entrance of the church were sent by singer James Brown.
The note says “you were more than a normal woman. You were a mother to man and woman, and an angel in the struggle for decency and pride.”
Signed james brown, the godfather of soul.
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First buses roll to funeral
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The first buses for Coretta Scott King’s funeral left the Mall at Stonecrest just before 9:30 a.m.. A fleet of about 20 DeKalb school buses went first, later to be followed by 15 MARTA buses.
Officials and witnesses said the long lines were very orderly, with the first buses actually leaving five minutes sooner than expected.
Burke Brennan, DeKalb County spokesman, estimated there are 10,000 people waiting. Those waiting were overwhelmingly African American.
“Where are the white people?” asked Darryl Mack as he stood in the line that snaked around the mall.
“This movement didn’t free just black people. Everybody was freed, but white people don’t recognize that.”
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Too late to join line for funeral
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Crowds lined up at the Mall at Stonecrest for Coretta Scott King’s funeral are so great that police warned that anyone not already in line at 9:40 a.m. would probably not get in.
DeKalb County spokesman Burke Brennan said police estimated that there are already more people in line than can be accommodated at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
The church can hold about 10,000 people, but some of those positions will be taken up by dignitaries and for security measures.
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Line for funeral buses began before dawn
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An enormous line had formed outside the Mall at Stonecrest by 9 a.m. to board buses to the funeral, and a heavy line of cars still streamed into the parking lot of the mall. Those near the front of the line said they arrived between 4 and 5 a.m.
Barbara Davis of Stockbridge was among a half-dozen friends who arrived together at 5 a.m.
“I wanted to pay my respects to Coretta Scott King, first lady of civil rights,� Davis said. “If she didn’t go through what she went through –- her and her husband –- I wouldn’t be here today, because I was born in 1963.�
Allese Williams, age 7, and her sister, Brandi, 9, of Lithonia, woke up at 3 a.m. to get in line with their mother, Angela Williams of Lithonia. They are home-schooled, and were attending the funeral as a “field trip.�
They have been studying Coretta Scott King recently. Allese said, “she’s very nice,� and Brandi called her, “inspiring.�
Asked what she would most remember about the experience, Allese said, “standing in the line.�
Angela Williams said, “It’s just a great thing to be able to bring your children to be a part of history.�
Adriane Reeves arrived at 4 a.m., partly because she feels a historical connection to the Kings. She said her parents, Verbon and Barbara Johnson, were among the young people who marched in Birmingham during the famous demonstration in which Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed.
Reeves was with her co-teacher in a Headstart program, Jasmin Bradshaw, who said, “We’re happy to be able to witness history in the making.�
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Viewing ends; church opens for funeral service
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The viewing for Coretta Scott King ended about 9 a.m. at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, and people began lining up for admission to the funeral service, which was scheduled to begin at noon.
By the 9 a.m. cutoff, the line for the viewing had dwindled, so it appeared no one had been turned away.
Extended family and friends were the first to be admitted for the funeral, about 9:15 a.m.
About 300 people were in line in the church parking lot, huddling in bunches against the cold as they waited for permission to enter the sanctuary.
Everyone who enters the church has to pass through a metal detector Ten metal detectors were set up, feeding into six doors.
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Last shuttles loaded for viewing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 8:45 a.m., organizers began loading the last shuttles from the Mall at Stonecrest for the viewing of Coretta Scott King. The viewing is scheduled to end at 9:30 a.m.
Saleria Whitfield of Lithonia decided at the last minute to come for the viewing. “I woke up this morning and was preparing to go to work and then I thought I really need to try to make this,” she said after returning from New Birth. “It was very overwhelming. I felt like I had to go. She was one of the last greats that we were actually able to touch.”
Lorraine Davis of Lithonia, also returning from the viewing, said, “This was a once in a lifetime experience. No one could have told me how I would feel when I saw her body. It was like a step back in time to when her husband was killed. It was the same sense of loss.”
Thousands of people are already lined up outside Parisian's at the mall to begin the trip over to New Birth for King's funeral, scheduled to begin at noon. The line snaked around in perpetual S-curves along one side of the mall.Permalink | Categories: Coretta Scott King: The latest
Metal detectors guard church doors
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Portable metal detectors guard each of the six doors to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, where Coretta Scott King’s viewing and funeral are being held today.
As people arrived and stood in line outside the church, they were checked by security officers using handheld metal detectors. The viewing began at 6:30 a.m.
The church’s main sanctuary has been searched and sealed off by the Secret Service, in preparation for the arrival of President Bush and scores of other dignitaries who will attend the funeral service.
DeKalb County police Chief Louis Graham arrived at the church shortly before 8 a.m.
Two mobile command posts are set up for authorities in the south parking lot of the church.
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Brothers recall the King legacy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tony Bryant, 45, of Atlanta, was among those paying respects this morning to Coretta Scott King at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
“If it weren’t for her sacrifices with her husband, we African Americans would not be in the place we are today,� he said.
Archie Bryant of Lithonia, Tony’s 50-year-old brother, said some people were trying to park on side streets near the church, but police were prohibiting that.
“I did some protesting with Hosea [Williams] and [Ralph David] Abernathy. I’ve always been involved, said Archie Bryant.
He said that coming to the church today “just seemed like the right thing. He [Dr. King] came from Atlanta and he changed things. I think the dream will always be alive, but we need more people to carry the message. The times have changed. People are not going around wearing sheets; now, it’s over the computer – the hate.�
He said that over time, it has struck him what the non-violent civil rights movement accomplished.
“People going up against dogs and knives and anything to hurt you – and you’re empty handed,� he said. “To change somebody’s mind, to make them think about what they’re doing, that’s incredible.�
Archie Bryant said of Mrs. King: “She was always in the background, but she was in the forefront.�
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Shuttle buses moving smoothly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
People and cars continued to move well outside the Mall at Stonecrest shortly after 7 a.m. Tuesday.
DeKalb County spokesman Burke Brennan said there were no longer any lines for shuttle buses to the viewing of Coretta Scott King’s body at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
MARTA officials say they have 15 buses moving people between the shopping mall and the church.
“We’ve already moved a couple of thousand people,” Brennan said. “The shuttles are working well once we got them going.”
Sgt. Charles Dedrick still warned anyone who might be driving in the area to avoid it if possible.
Dedrick said the crowds at the mall and church were huge. “It’s just crazy right now,â€? said Dedrick.
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Funeral dominates news shows; today’s soaps to be pre-empted
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The local news shows are giving the Coretta Scott King funeral lead coverage this morning, with reporters stationed at the Mall of Stonecrest and New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
Ryan Young on WSB-TV noted that plenty of dignitaries were scheduled to be at the church, including four former presidents, dozens of other politicians, the Rev. T.D. Jakes and poet Maya Angelou.
Tiffani Reynolds interviewed heavily bundled mourners waiting in line to board shuttle buses at Stonecrest, noting that the public will have to choose either the public viewing or the funeral but probably won’t be able to attend both.
Over at WXIA-TV, a frigid-looking Paul Crawley stood by Ebenezer Baptist Church live at 6:35 a.m. to note that the last mourner did not leave until 2:10 a.m. this morning, part of 115,000 who paid their respects last night.
Soaps are being preempted for the funeral:
— “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” will air on WSB-TV at 2:05 a.m. and 3:05 a.m. Wednesday, respectively.
— On WGCL-TV, “The Young and the Restless� will air at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, “The Bold and the Beautiful� at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday and �As the World Turns� at 4 a.m. Wednesday.
— On WXIA-TV, “Days of Our Lives” will air one hour early at 11 a.m. today, preempting “Atlanta & Company,” and Tuesday’s “Passions” will be on Wednesday at 2 p.m., followed by the Wednesday edition at 3 p.m., preempting “Starting Over.”
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A kiss a serviceman remembers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mickey Webb, 66, of Columbus, recalled that he got to kiss Coretta Scott King about 25 years ago.
He had just returned home from the second of two tours of duty in Vietnam and was at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Atlanta. He was in his dress blues and was given a restaurant table next to hers.
“I introduced myself and was able to kiss her and before I left, I kissed her again,â€? said Webb as he attended Mrs. King’s viewing at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. “She said, ‘You like kissing me,’ and I said, ‘Yes, I’m kissing a legend.’â€?
Webb said he respected Martin Luther King Jr. for speaking out against the Vietnam war. “He told the truth about the war. That was a very difficult thing to do at the time,� he said. “Loved him, loved him.�
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Live funeral coverage at 7 only on WAGA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Good Day Atlanta” on WAGA is the only live local show at 7 a.m. It continues to provide coverage of people attending Mrs. King’s viewing or preparing to attend the funeral.
“GMA” and “The Today Show” — which appear on other Atlanta channels at 7 a.m. — have merely mentioned the funeral.
“If you plan on coming here, you better come soon,” WAGA’s Marc Teichner said. “There are 10,000 seats, which seems like a lot but people may have to be turned away.”
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A journey from Texas to pay tribute
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Christine Solomon, 58, came from Texas to pay her respects to Mrs. King.
“I felt it was necessary to be part of history. She had done so much for our society and she showed great courage,� said Solomon.
Going past the casket, she said it made her think of her own mother. She said her mother was a domestic worker who put in long hours for low pay.
“I realize she [her mother] was history, I realize the struggles that made us what we are today.� She said Monday was her mother’s birthday.
She said of Mrs. King being with Martin now, “I feel like she has joined him in peace. She did what she could do to carry the dream.�
Ron Williams, 47, of Stone Mountain, said it was only a 10 minute wait to board the buses, then about a 10-minute drive to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, then about 15 minutes on line to view the body.
“Very well organized,� he said.
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First shuttles arrive at church for viewing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The first group of 15 shuttle buses from the mall arrived at the about 6:15 a.m.
A line began snaking through the parking lot of the church’s chapel for the viewing. Inside the building, the single-file line worked its way through a hallway and into the chapel to view Mrs. King’s body.
Theresa Grant, 33, a postal worker from Conyers, said she got up at 4 a.m. and got to the mall at 5:10.
“I’m really excited,� Grant said. “I’ve never seen her in person before. It’s historical to actually see the mother of the civil rights movement.�
Inside the chapel, the mourners went down a center aisle to the casket.
As Grant viewed the body in awe, she said, “She looks like she’s 40 years old.�
It took the first group of mourners about 15 minutes to go into the chapel, view the body and come outside.
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Early traffic mounts at site for boarding shuttles
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Early traffic on Atlanta’s east side was building around the Mall at Stonecrest, where the shuttle buses for the Coretta Scott King funeral were situated. But roads remained unclogged as of 6:30 a.m.
The Georgia Department of Transportation cameras showed no tie-ups on I-20 east of Atlanta and toward New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, where the funeral will be held.
Police said they expect to intermittenly close ramps at I-20 interchanges from Turner Hill Road east to Candler Road as traffic mounts.
MARTA has warned of delays on buses in the area, especially Routes 86-Lithonia and 111-Indian Creek.
Ron Williams, 47, of Stone Mountain said funeral organizers were moving vehicles and people well from The Mall at Stonecrest despite heavy turnout.
Williams said he waited about 20 minutes to get on a shuttle bus and another 10 to get to the church for the viewing. He said he had to wait in line about 10 minutes to get into the church to view the body.
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Early arrivals sent to board shuttles
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 6 a.m., preparations were in full swing for the viewing and funeral for Coretta Scott King at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
A small army of police, fire and other official vehicles combed the large campus. A helicopter hovered up above. More than a dozen news vans were on the scene.
Because of the limited parking at the church, people wanting to attend the viewing or the funeral were told to park at Stonecrest Mall and take shuttle buses.
People were being told to choose between the viewing or the funeral service because they would be unable to make both. Buses for each function were loading at separate locations at the mall. The viewing is from 6:30 to 9:30; the funeral service is from noon to 3 p.m.
About a half-dozen people arrived at the church early. Those included Marvin and Althelene Table of Lithonia, who arrived about 5:15 a.m.
Marvin Table said he was living in Memphis when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and he had witnessed King’s last speech there.
He said, “There was excitement in the air about Martin Luther King’s speech, and how he acknowledged unity – but you could just grab it in the air.�
The couple said they had been planning to come to the church since Saturday. She wanted to get there at 4 a.m., but he didn’t want to get up so early, so they compromised.
Athelene Table said, “We have to let the generations know how important this is. This is a great milestone in history.�
As they stood about a half-mile from the church building, the group complained loudly when a police officer told them there would be no walk-ins, that they would have to go to Stonecrest Mall and board the shuttle buses.
Dee Bush, 42, of Covington, waited in the group with her 12-year-old son, Jalil, both bundled up in the freezing cold. “4:20 a.m. We’re trying to walk in,� Dee Bush said.
“We thought if we came out late, it would be crowded,� Jalil said. “We wanted to get here before everybody else.�
“My reason is, you read about history, or you make history. I wanted to make history,� Dee Bush said. “For the sacrifices, she made in her life, this is nothing.�
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Final tribute begins
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With the U.S. flag ordered lowered to half staff, the nation begins the final stage of its weeklong tributes to Coretta Scott King Tuesday morning.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow will lie in honor one last time — between 6:30 and 9:30 a.m. at New Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia — before her funeral at the church at noon.
No parking will be allowed at the church for the early morning public viewing. Mourners are encouraged to park at The Mall at Stonecrest and take one of several dozen MARTA buses that will be available. The shuttles will leave from the lower level parking lot outside Sears. The first bus will depart around 6 a.m. and the shuttle service will be discontinued 30 to 45 minutes before the end of the viewing.
The church, at 6400 Woodrow Road, is just south of I-20 off Evans Mill Road. The mall is at Exit 75, Turner Hill Road.
Otherwise, mourners will have the option of walking the three miles from the mall to the church, but it will be a chilly trek. The National Weather Service expects partly cloudy skies but temperatures only in the high 40s.
For the funeral, which is expected to attract thousands of people to the mega church, mourners are encouraged to arrive early, but no earlier than 9:30 a.m. Doors are scheduled to open at 10 a.m.
More than 100,000 mourners have viewed King’s body since it first lay in state at the State Capitol on Saturday, then at historic Ebenezer Baptist Church on Monday.
The funeral is expected to draw some of the nation’s most prominent figures, from presidents and poets to entertainers to athletes.
President Bush, who is expected to make remarks, ordered the U.S. flag lowered to half staff today in honor of King, who died a week ago in Mexico while seeking medical treatment.
After the funeral, which is scheduled to be over at 3 p.m., King’s body will be placed in a temporary mausoleum at the King Center on Auburn Avenue, a facility King founded to carry on the nonviolence philosophy of her husband, who was assassinated in 1968. The mausoleum is the same one Martin Luther King Jr. lay in for six years before his permanent crypt was prepared.
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Viewing of civil rights matriarch ends at 2 a.m.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It was well past midnight by the time the last person filed past the body of Coretta Scott King at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
At 2 a.m. this morning, the last of the mourners marched down the steps from the sanctuary of the historic Auburn Avenue church after catching their last – and in many cases, their only – glimpse of the civil rights matriarch.
Soon afterward, the National Park Service announced that more than 115,000 mourners had braved the biting cold and persistent drizzle throughout the day Monday to pay their final respects.
The number far surpassed the 42,00 people who stood in line to view King’s body in the state Capitol Saturday.
Monday’s viewing was supposed to end at midnight. But even at 12:30 a.m., a line of about 1,200 mourners stretched along four city blocks. Officers monitoring the crowd stopped allowing visitors to join the line at 10:45 p.m. but still the wait time to make it to the church topped two hours.
The rain finally subsided but mourners began worrying that officials might abruptly end the viewing before the last person had a chance to pay tribute to King. They didn’t.
Wendell Gant, 34, who managed to squeeze in the line just before it was closed, brought along his wife and two children, ages 8 and 7.
“I told them how they used to march for miles back in the day,” he said. “For us to stand for an hour or two, that’s nothing.”
Ahead of them, Ron Vickers, 51, of Atlanta gradually inched forward with his two granddaughters, Ziah and Micah Davidson, in tow. Vickers said that before coming, he had quizzed the girls, ages 6 and 7 respectively, about the significance of this day and what Mrs. King meant to them.
The sisters understood, Vickers said. And so the two girls, bundled from head-to-toe, waited patiently as 2 1/2 hours passed, finally perking up as the church steps came into view.
At the very end of the line, stood DeNorris Turner, 41, biding his time.
After a full day of work and night classes, he too had snuck in just as officers were cordoning off the line.
Turner said he once took a class with Bernice King at Douglas High School but didn’t know she was part of the King family until graduation day when he saw her mother in the audience.
Coretta Scott King exchanged pleasantries with Turner’s mother, he said, and complimented her on something. He doesn’t quite remember what it was, but he does remember how touched his mother was. After waiting three hours, Turner was only able to spend a couple of seconds in front of the open casket — not even long enough to say a prayer.
He wasn’t disappointed through. Just being there made him feel like a part of history, he said.
As King’s casket was loaded on to a hearse and carried away to the strains of “Amazing Grace,â€? a dozen mourners lingered outside the church — some biting their lips to keep from crying, some dabbing their eyes.
Among them was Nathan Brown. The 29-year-old social worker had been to the Capitol to say his goodbye to King but he felt compelled to come back, he said.
“While we are wandering around our lives trying to figure out our purpose, you want to connect with someone who accomplished so much,” Brown said.” You want to be in that presence and feel that hope.” This morning, King’s body will be taken back to the funeral home and then to the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia where another public viewing is scheduled to begin at 6:30 a.m.
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Thousands wait deep into night
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A half-hour after Coretta Scott King’s viewing was scheduled to end at Ebenezer Baptist Church, more than 1,200 people still stood in line early this morning hoping to pay their respects to the civil rights matriarch.
The line stretched along four city blocks with mourners grateful that the rain finally subsided but worried that officials might abruptly end the viewing before the last person had a chance to pay tribute to King.
Officers monitoring the crowd stopped allowing visitors to join the line at 10:45 p.m. but still the wait time to make it to the church topped two hours.
National Park Service spokeswoman Saudia Muwakkill said at 12:30 a.m. that all who remained in line will get a chance to view the body even it meant keeping the casket at the church till well past 2 a.m. Ron Vickers, 51, of Atlanta gradually inched forward with his two granddaughters, Ziah and Michah Davidson, in tow.
Vickers said that before coming, he had quizzed the girls, ages 6 and 7 respectively, about the significance of this day and what Mrs. King meant to them.
The sisters understod, Vickers said. And so the two girls, bundled from head-to-toe, waited patiently as 2/12 hours passed, finally perking up as the church steps came into view.
On the other side of the church building, DeNorris Turner, 41, bided his time at the very end of the line.
After a full day of work and night classes, he had snuck in at 10:45 p.m just as officers were cordoning off the line. Turner said he once took a class with Bernice King at Douglas High School but didn’t know she was part of the King family until graduation day when he saw her mother in the audience.
Coretta Scott King exchanged pleasantries with Turner’s mother, he said, and complimented her on something. He doesn’t quite remember what it was, but he does remember how touched his mother was.
“I plan on sticking it out here as long as it takes,” he said, even though he has to be at work again at 6:30 a.m. today. “But even if they close it off before then, I’ll be OK with it. I consider just being here paying my last respects.”
The viewing began at 10 a.m. and by 10 p.m. Monday, 68,000 people had filed passed the dark wooden pews of the church and paid silent tribute to the first lady of civil rights. The number far surpassed the 42,000 people who stood in line to view King’s body in the state Capitol Saturday.
This morning, King’s body will be taken back to the funeral home and then to the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia where another public viewing is scheduled to begin at 6:30 a.m.
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Evening service to feature legendary speakers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Cold rain and rush hour traffic couldn’t stop mourners from packing the house at Horizon Sanctuary at Ebenezer Baptist Church this evening for a traditional memorial service honoring Coretta Scott King.
Expected speakers for the 7 p.m. event include Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, former U.S. Ambassador and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young and U.S. Rep. John Lewis
Earlier today, a musical tribute honored the widow of the famed civil rights leader.
Across Auburn Avenue, hundreds continue to stream into the old church’s Heritage Sanctuary to view Mrs. King, who will lie in honor until midnight.
The National Park Service said about 13,000 streamed through the church during the first six hours the doors were open to the public.
Prior to the evening’s service about 300 members of Mrs. King’s sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, adorned in striking white robes, filled Horizon Sanctuary with song.
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Bush orders flags at half-staff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WASHINGTON — President Bush has ordered American flags to be flown at half-staff tomorrow in memory of Coretta Scott King.
Bush and former President Clinton will lead the dignitaries expected to attend her funeral tomorrow at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, where King’s youngest child, Bernice, is a minister.
The 78-year-old widow of Martin Luther King Junior died last week at an alternative medicine clinic in Mexico, where doctors said she was battling advanced ovarian cancer. She also had been recovering from a serious stroke and heart attack.
In a proclamation issued today, Bush said flags shall be lowered until sunset tomorrow at the White House and on all public buildings, U.S. naval vessels, military posts and embassies across the nation and abroad.
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Thousands pay respects at Ebenezer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A solemn column of mourners filed into Ebenezer Baptist Church this morning to pay their respects to Coretta Scott King, whose body will lie in honor until midnight tonight at the famed Auburn Avenue church.
Hundreds tread the red carpet, passed the dark wooden pews, and, just below the pulpit where her husband once delivered fiery sermons, paid silent tribute to matriarch of the civil rights movement.
The National Park Service said about 13,000 mourners passed through Ebenezer between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Mrs. King’s bronze casket is gray with burgundy accents. She is dressed in pink. Above her, resting on an easel, is her portrait.
Jackie Treen, 51, an elections judge who flew in from Maryland, was visibly shaken and emotional after viewing the body of Mrs. King.
She said the values of Mrs. King “have to endure.”
“God bless her family and give them the strength to endure and carry on her legacy,” said Treen.
Treen said she felt inspired after the viewing.
“I’m honored to put my eyes on Coretta Scott King,” she said.
Beautine Baker, 73, a retired teacher from Plainfield, Ill., stood in the rain outside the church to view Mrs. King.
“If not for them, my school would not have been integrated,” said Baker.
She said today made her think of her own mortality. “We can’t be here forever, but I thank God I was alive when she was. We stood out in the rain. The young people — I was so proud to see them waiting their turn to see this courageous lady.”
Orlando Jones, 41, of Montgomery, Ala., waited five hours Saturday to see Mrs. King at the Capitol. He said he was at Ebenezer to share the experience with his wife.
“There will always be a stirring in my heart” for the message of Martin Luther King and his wife, said Jones. “Love, non-violence and racial equality.”
Jones said the Kings’ message is greatly needed today.
“With this hip-hop generation — they think about who’s has got gold teeth instead of the destiny of mankind. I still have a dream.”
Just before 11 a.m. hundreds of mourners stood in a viewing line that extended a block west of Ebenezer Church, then as they neared the church, they had to snake through four lines separated by barricades.
Purses were searched, but otherwise mourners were not screened before entering Ebenezer. Those arriving wore tennis shoes and high heels. Their clothing, from jogging suits to their Sunday best, glistened from standing outside in the rain.
Earlier this morning, Lynn Cothren, Mrs. King’s assistant, was the last King Center employee to file past the casket before the public was let into the church. Crying, he grabbed a tissue from a table as he came in.
A woman who called herself The Prophet Rev. Patricia struggled up the steps to the church. She said, “she had a dream and she followed the dream.
Beautine Burns, 73, who drove from Plainfield, Ill., with her 83-year-old husband, said she knew the Kings when they were in Chicago, “and I participated in the sit-ins and took food to the Kings.�
Burns, who was resting on a bench just before entering the sanctuary, had waited outside the church for an hour and a half.
Dorothy Miles of College Park struggled with a cane as she climbed the steps to the sanctuary. Miles, who was wearing running shoes, a black dress and a fur hat, said she came because, “I had no choice.�
After passing the casket, one mourner collapsed face-down in the aisle, wailing and sobbing.
Other mourners simply stepped around him until a National Park Service officer leaned over him and said “You can’t lie here man, you gotta get up.”
The man got up and walked out of the church.
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Winfrey: King ‘leaves us all a better America’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey paid homage to “royalty” today at a musical tribute celebrating the life of Coretta Scott King.
After almost three hours of music, Winfrey climbed up to the pulpit, dressed in a black dress, pearls, and the purple memorial ribbon that many were wearing Monday.
“I’m happy to pay tribute to her,” Winfrey said, “but happier still to know that I gave her her flowers while she still lived. … To me, she embodied royalty. She was the queen.”
Winfrey chuckled, as did the congregation, recalling a show of hers Mrs. King had appeared on where she was supposed to get a makeover.
And she teared up, slightly, recalling a letter she received from Mrs. King a week before her death.
“Every time I spoke with her, I came away wiser,” Winfrey said. “She leaves us all a better America than the America of her childhood.”
When she finished, Winfrey, now crying openly, hugged the four King siblings seated up front.
The Kings’ daughter Yolanda King closed the tribute, thanking everyone - not just the people who had appeared in the sanctuary. She thanked everyone for their prayers, since Mrs. King had her stroke last year. “Those prayers carried us. They carried her,” King said.
The Musical Tribute at Ebenezer Baptist Church’s Horizon Sanctuary got under way about 12:25 p.m.
“The Black National Anthem admonishes us to lift every voice and sing,” said the Rev. Raphael G.Warnock, senior pastor of Ebenezer.
“And that is why we are here - to sing.”
After brief remark about Mrs. King’s love of music - she was a trained opera singer - and her place in American history, he led the estimated 2,000 people in attendance in the opening hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Singer Gladys Knight joined the King children on the front row. She hugged Martin Luther King III and Yolanda King and sat next to them.
Later, the native Georgian sang “Jesus is the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.”
Also attending the services are Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin; activist Dick Gregory; Stephanie Hughley, of the National Blacks Arts Festival; Xernona Clayton, civil rights activist and founder of the Trumpet Awards, a longtime friend of Mrs. King.
A long list of performers captivated the large crowd.
Soprano Rebecca Cook Carter sang a slow and stately version of “The Lord’s Prayer,” which ended in a standing ovation.
The HBCU Quartet, a gospel group, wove traditional songs and words of praise into one tapestry, saying that Mrs. King is now with Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi and her late husband. “Like them, she kept the faith and did God’s will.” A few “Amens” echoed in the sanctuary.
Rebecca Cook Carter’s touching a capella rendition of The Lord’s Prayer brought hearty applause from mourners.
Resonance, a spoken word trio, also stirred mourners as they gave a modern beat to old-time spirituals like “I’m Building Me a Home” and “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round.”
“Coretta King gives illustration and new meaning to the song ‘Amazing Grace.’ That’s how she lived, and indeed, that’s how she left this Earth,” the Rev. J.W. Matt Hennesse, pastor of Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church in Portland, Ore., told mourners.
Rev. Kenneth Flowers from Detroit read Jeremiah 33:1-3, which read in part: “The Lord is His name. Call to me and I will answer you and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. This is the word of God for the people of God.”
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Sculptor remembers woman of hope
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Patrick Morelli cast about on the sidewalk across the street from Ebenezer Baptist Church looking like someone who wanted to talk to someone. He had flown in the night before from Denver to pay his respects to Coretta Scott King, he said. He had come out of the church a moment earlier.
The sculptor worked with King on the design for the 10-foot bronze statue across the street.
“Behold� shows a father holding a newborn son high over his head. It reflects the baptism ritual described in Alex Haley’s “Roots,� he said.
It also reflected Coretta Scott King’s character, he said. King was looking for a hopeful image in the sculpture, Morelli said. “By nature, she was hopeful,â€? he added.
The King Center couldn’t afford to pay for the work itself, he said. So he spent almost a decade raising $250,000 to build it.
They stood together as it was unveiled in 1990, he said. Morelli said he was incredibly grateful to King for her work, and for letting him work with her.
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King will use husband’s temporary mausoleum
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A crane dropped marble slabs into place in the grass while mourners filed out of Ebenezer Baptist Church. Four men with iron pry bars and shovels labored in the miserably cold rain, guiding the stone into place.
They cleared the wet grass to the bare earth to cover it with crushed rock and, eventually, Coretta Scott King’s temporary mausoleum, the same one Martin Luther King Jr. lay in for six years while the company prepared his permanent crypt.
Leland Lynch of Roberts-Shields Memorial Co. walked across the path behind Martin Luther King Jr.’s resting place to hold a yellow guide line. Coretta’s temporary mausoleum will lie in a tree-covered space a couple of dozen yards in front of her husband’s. Lynch lined up the empty space in the grass with her husband’s grave.
Coretta will rest high, Lynch said. Her mausoleum will be easily visible from Auburn Avenue, so people passing by the church can see it, he said. A few people leaving Ebenezer Baptist stopped to watch the workmen dig. Most walked by quickly to get out of the grim rain.
The temporary stone structure is a little bit smaller, and not as ornate as the one resting on a brick island in the reflecting pool, he said. The company kept it after he was moved, 30 years ago. A few months from now they will move his over a bit and she’ll rest in another tomb next to him.
Lynch left north Georgia last night to beat this morning’s snow fall in Calhoun. He said the rain in Atlanta wouldn’t slow them down. The work is too important, he said. He wished he could have brought his kids.
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Famous names coming to funeral
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A sampling of the politicians, civil rights leaders and others who plan to attend Coretta Scott King’s funeral Tuesday in Atlanta:
— President George W. Bush. and first lady Laura Bush
— Former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.
— Former President George H.W. Bush
— Former President Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter
— Oprah Winfrey, television talk-show host
— Stevie Wonder, singer/musician
— Maya Angelou, poet/author
— Bebe Winans, gospel singer
— Ambassador Andrew Young, former lieutenant of Martin Luther King Jr. who became a congressman, ambassador to the United Nations and mayor of Atlanta
— The Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference along with King
— The Rev. Jesse Jackson, with King when he was assassinated and later formed the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition
— Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., former head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee who led the “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma, Ala.
— Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue
— Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
— Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.
— Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga.
— Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.
— Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
— Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
— Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.
— Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.
— Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
— Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.
— Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.
— Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.
— Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md.
— Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., the first black congresswoman elected from Georgia
— Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, the city’s first female mayor
— Zanele Mbeki, wife of South African President Thabo Mbeki
— Bishop T.D. Jakes, author/pastor of The Potter’s House, a 30,000-member Dallas megachurch.
— The Rev. Al Sharpton, civil rights activist
— Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.
— Malaak Shabazz, one of Malcolm X’s daughters
— Kweisi Mfume, former congressman and NAACP president
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Parking problems expected for funeral
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
DeKalb County officials are encouraging those who plan to attend the funeral for Coretta Scott King — or the public viewing of her body Tuesday morning — to park at Stonecrest Mall.
A county news release says no parking will be available at the site of the funeral, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, for the morning public viewing, which is scheduled from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. For those not wishing to walk the three miles from the mall to the church, MARTA will run shuttle buses from the lower level parking lot outside Sears.
For the funeral, which is to begin at noon, the county encourages attendees to arrive early — but no earlier than 9:30 a.m. Again, parking at the mall is encouraged, and the MARTA shuttle will operate.
The church is just south of I-20, off Evans Mill Road. The mall is at exit 75, Turner Hill Road. The county says the state Department of Transportation will avoid closing any lanes at the construction site at I-20 and Wesley Chapel Road, just east of the I-285 interchange, to try to keep traffic moving.
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Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to perform at funeral
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will frame the funeral of Coretta Scott King, performing at the beginning and the end of the service, to be held Tuesday at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia.
The opening number will be a mournful adagio (from a Bach orchestral suite) and at the end will come the “Hallelujah Chorus” (from Handel’s “Messiah”). ASO music director Robert Spano will conduct, joined by singers from the ASO Chorus, New Birth Missionary Church and other local choirs.
Mrs. King was a trained classical soprano and graduated from Boston’s New England Conservatory with a music education degree. On several occassions, when her health permitted, she took the stage with the ASO for its annual “A King Celebration.”
A tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. and his civil-rights legacy, the “King Celebration” concerts were performed at Dr. King’s alma mater, Morehouse College, and broadcast nationally on National Public Radio. She did not sing at these events but instead read excerpts from her husband’s speeches or offered her own inspirational words.
Funeral organizers from the King Center contacted the ASO last week and invited the ensemble to perform, said Charlie Wade, ASO vice-president for marketing.
The musical selections were determined, in part, by the breadth of speakers and musical tributes scheduled for the funeral program, and by the lack of rehearsal time for the orchestra.
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King children arrive at Ebenezer for tribute to their mother
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 12:20 p.m. Dexter, Martin III, Yolanda and Bernice King were escorted to the front of the sanctuary for the extensive tribute that includes remarks by numerous ministers, dignitaries and several musical performances. Yolanda King is scheduled to give closing remarks.
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Oprah at Ebenezer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey entered historic Ebenezer Baptist Church just before noon to pay her respects to Coretta Scott King.
Winfrey entered from a side door, wearing a black dress and tweed overcoat.
Once mourners inside had left, the doors to the church were closed.
Winfrey stood by the coffin and gently stroked Mrs. King’s hand with the back of her hand. She also seemed to speak to the widow of Martin Luther King Jr.
After lingering a few moments, she turned and walked to the side of the coffin, teary-eyed.
Winfrey stood at the foot of the coffin, her arms crossed, for a few moments before leaving from the door used to enter the sanctuary. She was accompanied by about a half dozen others.
Once she left, other mourners were allowed to enter.
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just before 11 a.m. hundreds of mourners stood in a viewing line that extended a block west of Ebenezer Church, then as they neared the church, they had to snake through four lines separated by barricades.
Purses were searched, but otherwise mourners were not screened before entering Ebenezer. Those arriving wore tennis shoes and high heels. Their clothing, from jogging suits to their Sunday best, glistened from standing outside in the rain.
Lynn Cothren, Mrs. King’s assistant, was the last King Center employee to file past the casket before the public was let into the church. Crying, he grabbed a tissue from a table as he came in.
A woman who called herself The Prophet Rev. Patricia struggled up the steps to the church. She said, “she had a dream and she followed the dream. Beautine Burns, 73, who drove from Plainfield, Ill., with her 83-year-old husband, said she knew the Kings when they were in Chicago, “and I participated in the sit-ins and took food to the Kings.� Burns, who was resting on a bench just before entering the sanctuary, had waited outside the church for an hour and a half.
Dorothy Miles of College Park struggled with a cane as she climbed the steps to the sanctuary. Miles, who was wearing running shoes, a black dress and a fur hat, said she came because, “I had no choice.�
Today’s program reflects King’s love of music
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A longtime friend of Coretta Scott King says today’s musical tribute follows King’s lifelong love of music.
Xernona Clayton says today’s musical tribute will bring a “full capacity” crowd at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Coretta Scott King died Jan. 30 from pneumonia brought on by complications caused by ovarian cancer. She was 78 years old.
King’s body will lie in honor in Ebenezer’s Heritage Sanctuary in Atlanta all day.
Clayton says King was a trained concert artist who gave concert tours to raise money for the organization of her husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. She says King liked all kinds of music, including the symphony and was one of the first blacks to become a patron of the symphony.
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Atlanta police honor guard carries casket into Ebenezer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Nearer My God To Thee� played softly from inside the church, and a light, cold drizzle fell outside as Coretta Scott King’s casket was carried into Ebenezer Baptist Church by APD honor guard.
Inside, the open casket was blanketed by an arrangement of red and salmon-colored roses and white irises. Seven sprays of white roses, or red roses, baby’s breath and white irises, surrounded the casket.
A banner from last month’s King holiday still hung in the church.
Bearing pictures of Coretta Scott King and her late husband, the banner read, “2006 King holiday observance, in honor of the 77th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King. 38th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Service, Jan 16, 2006.
Vickie White, 42, made the drive south from New Jersey with two other members of the People’s Organization for Progress, a grassroots effort for racial and economic equality.
White said, “I took the time because, how could we not be here. While Mrs. Rosa Parks was considered the mother of the civil rights movement, Mrs. King was clearly the first lady.�
She said that Mrs. King could have gone into seclusion after her husband’s death, but, “she picked up the mantle.�
The three drove 850 miles in a 2004 minivan, bringing with them several hundred placards reading, “We Remember Coretta Scott King.� They were planning to drive back to New Jersey today after viewing the body.
White said the group’s leader, Lawrence Hamm, had called her and said, “I’m thinking about going to Atlanta.�
“We went to Washington for Rosa Parks, and we felt very strongly that Mrs. King was due at least this,� White said.
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Gladys Knight, others to perform at today’s tribute
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The family of Coretta Scott King announced more details about the musical tribute to their mother today at Ebenezer Baptist Church Horizon Sanctuary.
Performers will include Gladys Knight, Stephanie Mills, Jean Carne and others.
Yolanda King, the oldest child, will make remarks.
The Horizon Sanctuary is across the street from the King Center and historic Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue.
On Sunday, Ebenezer Baptist Church spokesman Corey Ealons said that singers Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin were invited to perform.
The event begins at noon and will last until at least 1 p.m., said Ealons, adding that artist Usher has also been asked to perform but has not been confirmed. Wonder and Franklin were among Super Bowl entertainers in Detroit Sunday.
A traditional memorial service will begin at 7 p.m., and will feature the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Joseph Lowery as speakers, said Ealons.
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Mourners line up early at Ebenezer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Organ music blended with the sound of raindrops hitting umbrellas on Auburn Avenue this morning, as some 40 mourners lined up early to see the body of Coretta Scott King at historic Ebenezer Baptist Church.
At the head of the line was Jackie Treen, 51, who had flown in from Maryland to pay tribute to the woman she called the first lady of the civil rights movement.
“I’m here to pay respects to the King family, for what the King family has done in order that my family has the privileges they have today,” Treen said.
She said that her own 30-year, biracial marriage probably would not have been possible if not for the Kings. “They paved the way for us to be treated as a woman and a man, not as she’s black and he’s white,” she said.
Treen noted that she had lived in Washington, D.C., when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. “My mom said, ‘Martin has been assassinated,’ and we all started crying.”
Treen, who was first in line, had arrived in the church at 4:30 a.m. because she thought there would be bigger crowds.
Lawrence Hamm, 52, of Montclair, N.J., drove 14 hours, arriving in Atlanta at 3:45 a.m. He said he had met Coretta Scott King when he was 17 and she had given him a youth leadership award from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
“It changed my life,” Hamm said. “She spoke about the importance of young people being involved in the struggle for civil rights. She said it’s important to have young leaders, because they are future leaders.â€?
Hamm is now the chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress, a grassroots effort for racial and economic equality, and he handed out signs to the people in line saying, “We remember Coretta Scott King.”
At about 8:20 a.m., a black hearse pulled up in front of the brick church. The crowd became silent and still, watching as several men in gray suits and tall, black top hats exited, and an honor guard took in the casket of Mrs. King.
Sharon Catching, 38, of Rex, was standing in line outside the church hurch with her two daughters, Shaina, 5, and Christina, 9.
Catching was 1 when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and was too young to remember, so she brought her children so they would have some memory of a moment in civil rights history.
She said she does remember how her parents and others of her parents’ generation were doing everything they could to make things better for her.
“I think some people today, particularly the people of my generation, really didn’t understand what they were going through,” Catching said. Catching said she felt a connection to Coretta Scott King that was like family. “It feels like your grandmother passed away, or your auntie.”
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Body will lie in King home church today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This morning, Coretta Scott King’s body is returning to where it all began spiritually for the King family – Ebenezer Baptist Church.
The widow of Martin Luther King Jr. will lie in repose at the historic church from 10 a.m until midnight. Ebenezer, on Auburn Avenue, has been the home church of the King family for 111 years, King’s since grandfather took over as pastor.
The King Historic District will be buzzing with activity virtually all day. At Ebenezer’s Horizon Sanctuary, the church will host a noon musical tribute and an evening memorial service in honor of King.
Coretta King died a week ago at age 78. On Saturday, more than 40,000 people braved the wind and cold to pay tribute at the State Capitol.
Weather conditions today will be much the same, with the forecast calling for a frigid mix of snow, sleet and rain and a high temperature in the low 40s. The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory in effect until noon for the metro area.
The Atlanta Police Department advises visitors to Ebenezer and the historic district to use MARTA, since several streets in the area will be closed, and traffic is expected to be heavy. The street closures, from 7 a.m. until midnight, include:
— Auburn Avenue from Bell Street to Old Wheat Street;
— Jackson Street from Irwin Street to Edgewood Avenue;
— Fort Street from Edgewood Avenue to Auburn Avenue;
— Old Wheat Street from Hilliard Street to Jackson Street.
Organizers said the noon musical tribute will include a number of celebrities and dignitaries for what is expected to be a star-studded musical tribute. Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin, fresh off of Super Bowl performances, were invited to sing. Corey Ealons, a spokesman for Ebenezer Baptist Church, said the two recording stars have not been confirmed yet. Usher was also invited.
Wonder penned “Happy Birthday,� in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and was supportive of Coretta King during her struggle to make her husband’s birthday a national holiday.
Franklin, who sang at King’s funeral in 1968, also sang at Rosa Park’s funeral last November.
At 7 p.m. this evening the Rev. Joseph Lowery and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, will highlight a memorial service in King’s honor.
To accommodate the large crowds that are expected for the viewing, the Martin Luther King Jr. National Park Service Visitor Center, will be open from 9 a.m. until midnight and tours of King’s birth home will continue until 8 p.m.
While all of that is going on, workers for the Roberts-Shields Memorial Co., are expected to finish building King’s crypt on a plot of grass in front of her husband’s crypt.
Ebenezer was founded in 1886 under the Rev. John A. Parker, who served as Ebenezer’s first pastor at the original site nearby —- on what is now Airline Street —- from 1886 to 1894. King’s maternal grandfather, the Rev. Adam D. Williams, became pastor in 1894 and saw the church experience its first significant growth.
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John Lewis: King Center ‘belongs to the ages’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. John Lewis, (R-Ga.) a lieutenant to Dr. Martin Luther King during civil rights struggle, said Sunday that he hopes the King family will transfer the King Center to the federal government.
“It is my belief that the King Center and the work of Dr. and Mrs. King belongs to the ages,� Lewis said after speaking at the Glenn Memorial Methodist Church at Emory University. “The center is bigger than just the birth family. It belongs to America.�
Lewis said he has heard nothing concrete about the future of the center since Coretta Scott King died.
“I hope the children transfer it to the government of America,� Lewis said. “I hope this can be an impetus for moving things along.�
Lewis noted that President Bush and former Presidents Carter and Clinton will attend the Tuesday funeral service. Having the current and several former presidents at a funeral for a non-president “is unheard of,� Lewis said, adding that “at least two planes filled with congressmen� will come to the funeral.
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King’s life likened to musical notes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Coretta Scott King’s life moved like musical notes.
There were high ones of success, and grace and beauty said her friends and family at Ebenezer Baptist Church Sunday morning during a service punctuated with songs of hope and reflection.
There were low ones of threats and bombings during the civil rights struggle, the murder of her husband Martin Luther King Jr. and her recent illnesses.
Whether difficult or easy, she sang her part without fail and perhaps with more feeling because of her experiences, her family said.
“When my mother died, she made a special attempt to be my friend. And when I was sick, she was one of the first persons to show concern about me,” brother-in-law Isaac Farris said between services.
Vernice Tuggle, a friend and church member, recalled that Mrs. King, despite her stature and her association with the powerful and important, remained approachable by those who wanted to shake her hand or say a few words. Each year, Mrs. King organized a reception for those who had worked at the annual church commemoration of her husband’s life and work.
“She was just a beautiful person and spirit. That was Coretta,” Tuggle said.
And she was well-remembered during the service, from calls for prayer for the family to the home-coming anthem played by the Ebenezer Instrumental Ensemble “Swing Low, Sweek Chariot”
Rev. Raphael Warnock told the crowd that gathered, “She never lost hope.”
She didn’t lose it through the marches and the arrests.
She didn’t lose it when their work was misunderstood or misrepresented, or through her recent illnesses.
When he last saw her recently, she was “physically frail, but spiritually strong,” he said.
Warnock said Mrs. King, who had studied music in college, understood and perservered in her role.
“It is not at all surprising that when God got ready to do something, to raise up a prophet in the 20th century … who would shake up the nation and the world, that God decided to send that prophet a songstress,” Warnock said.
“Through the dark days and nights, she was his song,” he said.
“What was the song? It was a song of love.”
And after King’s murder, she continued playing her part, speaking out and helping direct the King Center.
“When God needed someone to sing about justice, he sent us Martin,” he said.
“And then he sent Martin Coretta. And she kept on singing.”
“We want to thank God today that she made certain that the melody would linger long after he left,” Warnock said.
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Sermon recalls preacher wife, crusader
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The phases of Coretta Scott King’s life, first as a private supporter of her husband, then a public witness to his work, was the sermon theme Sunday during services at Marietta’s First United Methodist Church.
“She signed on to be the wife of a Baptist preacher,” said senior Pastor Sam Matthews. “It was supposed to be a sort of uneventful life at Dexter Avenue Baptist and then Rosa Parks couldn’t get up on a bus that day and a group gathered to support her and when her husband was elected spokesperson of that group Coretta King’s life changed.”
Still, Matthews told a near-capacity crowd, Coretta King saw her ministry as a private one supporting her husband. Even after their home was bombed and their lives threatened she was the one who stayed in the background, raising her children and offering comfort to her husband.
Only later, when she wrote of her life, did the world learn of the inner struggles she dealt with, Matthews said.
“She wrote about the letters and the phone calls, about her house being bombed while her children were there,” Matthews said. “She saw her husband in jail, she saw him stabbed and then assassinated.”
After he husband’s death in 1968 Coretta King “took on a public mantle,” he said.
“I don’t know if she was ever comfortable with that role and I guess the future will be the judge of how successful she was, but she was called into an arena to which she did not asked to be called.”
After the service former Gov. Roy Barnes, a parishioner at the church, remembered his last visit with King prior to her stroke.
“She was a lady full of grace,” said Barnes. “She met great tragedy and was an example to all of us of how to deal with tragedy.” Barnes, who said he plans to attend King’s funeral on Tuesday, said the days of mourning provide an opportunity for everyone to reflect “on how we can change the community for better like she did.”
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Street closings Monday for viewing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The viewing of Coretta Scott King’s body Monday at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue will affect traffic in the surrounding area for the entire day.
City officials have announced that the following streets will be closed Monday from 7 a.m. until midnight: Auburn Avenue from Bell Street to Old Wheat Street; Jackson Street from Irwin Street to Edgewood Avenue; Fort Street from Edgewood to Auburn; Old Wheat Street from Hilliard Street to Jackson Street.
Atlanta police are expecting the event to draw a high volume of vehicles and pedestrians and are urging the public to use MARTA. The King Center stop on the eastern MARTA line is a short stroll away.
The viewing lasts from 10 a.m. until midnight at the historic church next to the King Center.
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Ebenezer worshippers celebrate King’s life
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After a rousing rendition of the black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” stirred worshippers at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Sunday, the congregation paused to mourn the loss of Coretta Scott King — who remained a faithful member until her death.
Standing in the pulpit of the church’s Horizon Sanctuary — across the street from the original Ebenezer, where King was a pastor, with his father, from 1960 to 1968 — the Rev. Raphael Warnock thanked King for her intelligence, beauty, courage and wisdom.
“Praise God for Coretta Scott King,” Warnock said. “Let the heavens rejoice for the witness of our sister.”
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference/W.O.M.E.N. planned a King tribute for Sunday afternoon in the Heritage Sanctuary, located in the original Ebenezer Baptist Church, a couple of blocks from the house where Martin Luther King Jr. was born.
On Monday night, King will be remembered in the Horizon Sanctuary by several civil rights leaders in a service expected to include the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Congressman John Lewis, Ambassador Andrew Young and the Rev. Joseph Lowery.
“It’s the least we can do for the many sacrifices she made,” Warnock said. “It is fitting for us to honor her. We join with people all over the world in celebration of her life.”
King’s body will lie in honor in Ebenezer’s Heritage Sanctuary all day Monday.
Officials estimated 42,000 mourners filed past her open casket Saturday in the state Capitol’s rotunda, where King lay in honor. She was the first woman and the first black person to lie in honor there, in striking contrast to the official snub her slain husband was given by then-Gov. Lester Maddox, an outspoken segregationist.
President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush lead a list of dignitaries expected to attend her funeral Tuesday in Lithonia, Ga.
Coretta Scott King died Jan. 30 at age 78.
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‘Heavens rejoice’ for King’s service
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hundreds mourned the loss of Coretta Scott King at the Sunday services of Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached in the 1960s and the civil rights matriarch remained a member until her death.
“Praise God for Coretta Scott King, let the heavens rejoice for the witness of our sister,” the Rev. Raphael Warnock said after a rousing rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” stirred the congregation.
A tribute to King also was planned Sunday in the historically black Atlanta neighborhood where her late husband was born.
On Saturday, thousands of mourners poured into the Georgia Capitol rotunda to pay tribute to King, the first woman and the first black person to lie in honor in what once was once a seat of segregation.
King, known as the “first lady of the civil rights movement,” died Monday at age 78. She had been at an alternative medicine clinic in Mexico, where doctors said she was battling advanced ovarian cancer. She also had been recovering from a serious stroke and heart attack.
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Last mourners file past casket
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 8:58 p.m., some nine hours after the public began filing into the Capitol, the last two mourners paid their respects.
“I’m just glad we made it,” said Lynette Archibald, who arrived at the Capitol with her boyfriend, Roger Williams, an hour earlier. “She’s done so much; she’s the first lady of the civil rights movement.”
After leaving the Capitol, Archibald and Williams said they were glad they had come — and made it inside.
“She looks like she’s asleep; so pretty,” said Archibald.
At 9 p.m., the black curtains of the rotunda were pulled shut. An undertaker in a black hat and morning coat gently placed white handkerchiefs over King’s hands and face.
Ten members of a state patrol honor guard, in white gloves and blue-grey uniforms, gathered around the rose-colored casket. And the sweet, sad skirl of bagpipes led the way.
At Washington and Mitchell streets, a cadre of motorcycles with blue lights escorted a hearse past a knot of people who had waited to say one more goodbye.
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Line closes with 5,000 still waiting
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 8 p.m., as officers closed the line of mourners waiting to see Coretta Scott King at the state Capitol, about 5,000 remained waiting in line.
Officials estimated it would be another hour and 15 minutes before everyone who was standing in line would have a chance to pay their respects.
At 7:45 p.m., three undertakers in black frock coats and top hats stood on three sides of the coffin, ready to bring the ceremony to a close.
The casket will be escorted to a waiting hearse by an honor guard of state patrol officers. A bagpiper will lead the way, playing “Rowan Tree.”
About 30,000 have passed by the coffin by 7:45 p.m., a staffer with the governor’s office estimated.
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Night falls with lines still long
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As the sun sank and the nearby neon lights of Underground Atlanta lit up, people continued to enter the line that snaked around three sides of a city block just west of the Capitol.
The mood was subdued but light, with scatters of soft laughter and parents saying, “Just a little longer,” to children.
As the sky turned dark, the wind lessened—a boon to the many in the crowd who brought children.
“If she could stand out in marches for hours, being in the cold for a little while is nothing,” Tia Lampkin, 29, of Atlanta, said of Mrs. King.
Lampkin had bundled her 15-month-old daughter, Tatumn, in two T-shirts, a sweatshirt and a coat, then covered her stroller with a large pink blanket.
The line was moving well, Lampkin said. It took her about 30 minutes to get two-thirds of the way through.
Lampkin said she never met any members of the King family, but felt compelled to come in part because of family history.
Her aunt, Vera Whiters, had been a waitress at Paschal’s Restaurant when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his aides often met there. Whiters had often served them, Lampkin said, and attended King’s funeral.
More than 15,000 people had paid respects by late afternoon, with waits to get into the Capitol ranging from 90 minutes to 2 hours.
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Lieutenant governor pays respects
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Shortly after 7 p.m., Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor and his wife Sacha arrived to pay their respects, bowing their heads slightly during a moment of silence. "She was a tremendous ambasador to the state of Georgia," Taylor said afterwards. "Coretta Scott King was an icon around the world and a real inspiration to me, especially because of her grace. No matter the situation, no matter the stress — regardless of the press of time or the press of the crowd, she was always so gracious." Taylor said he was not surprised at the long line of mourners who filed through the Capitol at a rate of 3,000 to 4,000 an hour.“I’m not surprised at all. i knew that this turnout would be unprecedented. She’s the glue that has held the movement together,” he said.
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Line long, but moving quickly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At 5:15 p.m. the line of visitors waiting to see Coretta Scott King lying in state at the Capitol was moving quickly, but intimidating in length.
The line to get inside the Capitol Rotunda went out onto Washington Street, down Mitchell Street and looped around almost an entire city block. With three hours left for anyone to get into line, people appeared to be streaming out of cars and jumping into the line. Most wore heavy coats, scarves and hats and stood shivering as they worked their way down the line.
An estimated 15,000 people had already viewed King’s body. Security workers kept visitors moving at a brisk pace and did not allow anyone to linger in front of the casket.
The area had large numbers of police, security workers and Ambassador Force workers.
Capitol Police said at 8 p.m. tonight they will cut off the line, but anyone in line at that time will be allowed to enter the Capitol.
Despite the number of people in line, the crowd was mostly quiet and orderly. The crowd was overwhelmingly black, with only a smattering of white people in line.
The entire area around the Capitol had heavy traffic with some lanes and streets closed. Visitors were advised to ride MARTA.
Janet Walker of southwest Atlanta stood outside the exit doors of the Capitol holding a small photo of Mrs. King with a hand-written caption: “Long Live the Queen.”
Walker, a student at Georgia State University, sang in a soft, clear voice: “Coretta Scott King, long live our queen, she was a peaceful warrior. Corretta Scott King, our queen, who wore God’s suit of armor. Gaze upon the queen, who marched with the king, and gave his life to him only.”
Walker said she has researched Mrs. King’s life, who she believes offers an inspiring message for young black women today. “She, to me, represents a type of black womanhood, a type of black ladyhood, that we sorely need today in the public eye.”
Passersby leaving the Capitol stopped to admire Walker’s voice. Some snapped photos. Some asked for autographs. One woman admonished her young daughter to listen carefully to Walker’s words.
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‘This is just something I knew I had to do’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Charles Adams recalled catching glimpses of Coretta Scott King at various times throughout his life.
On Saturday, Adams, 36, stood in line for two hours to take his last look.
King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., died on Monday at 78. On Saturday she became the first woman and the first African-American to lie in state at the Capitol.
Her body will lie at the Capitol until tonight. Officials have said those in line by 8 p.m. would be allowed in.
At 4 p.m. the Capitol Police estimated that about 15,000 people had already come through for the viewing. Wait times were 90 minutes to 2 hours.
Adams had seen King at high school graduations, church functions and marches throughout his life. He’d taken her for granted as a part of the Atlanta civil rights scenery. Adams had even escorted Martin Luther King III on trips from the airport for various social events.
“This is just something I knew I had to do,” Adams said. “I wanted to come out and actually participate.”
Adams said he viewed King as an icon of the civil rights era, one he is too young to recall.
“She reminds me of a lot of the stuff that I saw in all those black-and-white pictures,” Adams said. “She was always there.”
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President Bush to attend funeral
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush will attend the funeral of Coretta Scott King on Tuesday.
“The King family is still finalizing the program, but the President is expected to make remarks as part of the service,” McClellan said.
The funeral is at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia.
The list of dignitaries who are either confirmed or expected to attend the funeral began to take shape Saturday.CONFIRMED:
—President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush
—Former President Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter
—Gov. Sonny Perdue and First Lady Mary Perdue
—Ten U.S. senators and about 100 members of the House of Representatives, including Reps. Lewis, Sanford Bishop and Cynthia McKinney of the metro area. The Senate delegation will be led by Ted Kennedy (D-Mass).
—Almost the entire Democratic leadership in the House, including Nancy Pelosi of California, Steny Hoyer of Maryland and James Clyburn of South Carolina
—South African First Lady Zanele Mbeki
—South African Ambassador to the United States Barbara Masekela
EXPECTED:
—Ex-presidents Bush and Clinton
—A majority of the Congressional Black Caucus, which has 43 members
—All or most of the Georgia congressional delegation (two senators and 13 House members)
Sources: The White House, The Carter Center, Gov. Perdue’s office, the congressional office of Rep. John Lewis, DeKalb County government.
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10,000 pay respects
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Capitol police estimate that almost 10,000 people had passed through the Capitol as of about 2:50 p.m.
The line stretched from Mitchell down to Central, across Central to MLK Drive, and then down to the Georgia State MARTA Station. The wait was 2 hours and 15 minutes, Capitol police estimated.
Anyone in line at 8 p.m. can view the body, but the line will close at that time.
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Officials, public united in respect
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thousands braved blustery, rainy pre-dawn gloom on Saturday morning to watch as a horse-drawn black carriage carried the body of the leading lady of the civil rights movement to the state Capitol.
By 1 p.m., when the first members of the public were allowed into the rotunda to pay their final respects to Coretta Scott King, the line outside the Capitol stretched for more than five blocks and was five or six people across.
About 400 mourners gathered on the edge of Howell Park across the street from the Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home at the corner of Peeples Street and Ralph David Abernathy Avenue to watch as the carriage was prepared to take her body to the Capitol.
Saturday, she became the first woman and the first African-American to lie in state at the Capitol. King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., died Monday at age 78. Her body will lie in state at the Capitol until 8 p.m.
“How could you not love the Kings? How could you not be sad?” said Robin Cermak of the West End.
Cermak said while King has been described by some as the only royalty that black people have, she disagrees.
“There have been many black kings and queens, but she is royalty. She is one of them.”
The older members of the crowd recalled the hardships of the Civil Rights era and the days that came before. Younger people were there to recognize the family that had sacrificed so much for their generation.
Nathan Peeks grew up in Perry Homes on Atlanta’s west side in the 1960s. Childhood memories were scarred by images of violence and hatred.
Peeks recalled restaurant owners in downtown Atlanta during the 1960s not letting him come inside to eat because he was black.
“We saw some things that brought civil rights to our attention. I remember when they burned a cross in front of Perry Homes,” said Peeks, 53. “From that time on, it was burned in our hearts and into our spirits.”
Early Saturday morning, members of the General Assembly also began gathering on the third floor of the Capitol to await the arrival of King’s casket. Many said they were deeply saddened by her death, but pleased that Gov. Sonny Perdue had extended to her the honor of lying in state under the Gold Dome.
“This is historic and unprecedented in Georgia to have an African-American and a woman lie in state,” said Rep. Virgil Fludd (D-Tyrone). “The significance has to do with both her race and gender, and also the contributions she’s made to our society and our state. This is an appropriate honor for her contributions.”
Rep. Ernest “Coach” Williams (D-Stone Mountain) also said he believed Perdue extended a fitting honor to Mrs. King. Williams said he did not know her personally, but remembered marching with her husband in Albany, Ga. “It’s appropriate not just because of her husband, but because of her own legacy and her own contributions to Georgia and the United States.”
The carriage bearing the casket brought onlookers to their windows and curbs as the horses walked and trotted through city streets. The cortege was joined by the King children and arrived on Washington Street at 11:3O a.m., greeted by cheers and applause from the crowd there.
Perdue, his wife Mary and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, all dressed in black, greeted the family at the Capitol Plaza with hugs and words.
The bronze casket was carried inside by an Honor Guard of the Georgia State Patrol.
Rising above the noise of four helicopters hovering above, a bagpiper played “Amazing Grace.”
Watching the casket go inside the Gold Dome, the face of Martin Luther King III crumpled with grief. As the 10-member honor guard maneuvered the stairs, there were more cheers from the crowd, some saying “Coretta!”
Once inside the rotunda, the casket was opened and family members gathered around to pay their final respects. State lawmakers watched from balconies above, many crying softly as the casket was opened.
King was dressed in a pink suit, adorned with a large white flower. The inside of her casket was lined with pink and two large bouquets featured pink roses, reported to be her favorite flower.
Shortly before noon, while the family and state officials began ceremonies with song and speeches inside, some jostling was taking place in the lines outside.
Some mourners tried to cut to the front of the line outside the capitol. They were immediately admonished by others in the the crowd. “This is NOT the day for that!” shouted mourner Toni James who drove down from South Carolina to pay her respects. “This is not some rock concert where it’s OK to act crazy!”
Inside, after he stood by King’s casket, the governor made a few short remarks. Perdue called King a “courageous and gracious” woman, and expressed his condolences to her four children, Yolanda, Martin Luther King III, Dexter and Bernice.
He said that while many in American today would claim King as their own, the King children are experiencing a great personal loss. Perdue then gave the King family an official state declaration commemorating King’s life.
After his remarks, Kathleen Bertrand sang a hymn, “Blessed Assurance.” Bertrand is a vice president at Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau and a well-known local singer.
Then Franklin gave a short address. “It is my privilege to join with all of you today to say, ‘Thank You, God’ for the life and work of Coretta Scott King,” Franklin said. “As mayor of Atlanta, I stand on very broad shoulders.” Franklin thanked King for her love, faith, and caring, and said that she would “be in our hearts and minds forever.”
Other elected officials who attended the brief ceremony included Secretary of State Cathy Cox and Commissioner of Agriculture Tommy Irvin.
State Rep. Randal Mangham (D-Decatur) was one of the first members of the Legislature to view King’s body. “She was great woman who left a great legacy,” Mangham said. “The great show of people here today is evidence of what she stood for and what she did. People were waiting for the new Moses. But Moses went over. She was the new Joshua.”
Mourner Marjorie Ellis, 40, of Atlanta carried a bouquet of three yellow roses outside the Capitol before the doors were opened to the public. “It occurred to me this morning that today is a historical day that I needed to witness,” she said. “This may be the only moment in my liftime that an African-American woman will ever lie in state here at our Capitol.”
Margaret Clemons and her 88-year-old mother, Dorothy Young, were among the first members of the public to pay their respects to Mrs. King.
“She looked so beautiful,” Young said. “I was so moved I intended to say a prayer, but I forgot.”
Robert Dixon Jr., 53, of Atlanta, originally from Mobile, said he waited in line for three hours to show his respects to Mrs. King.
“I was freezing, but I would have stood out here even if it was snowing,” he said after viewing her body in the state Capitol. “She is a woman for all people.”
The experience was “incredible,” he added.
“She brought me here,” Dixon said. “She’s a great woman. She has carried on the movement for Martin Luther King. She is the Queen of Civil Rights, a woman of justice, of peace, of hope and of love.”
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Viewing an ‘incredible’ experience
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Robert Dixon Jr., 53, of Atlanta, originally from Mobile, Ala., said he waited in line for three hours in the cold weather to show his respects for Mrs. King.“I was freezing, but I would have stood out here even if it was snowing,” he said after viewing her body in the state Capitol. “She is a woman for all people.”
The experience was "incredible," he added.“She brought me here,” Dixon said. “She’s a great woman. She has carried on the movement for Martin Luther King. She is the Queen of Civil Rights, a woman of justice, of peace, of hope and of love.”
Sandra Pope, who lives in West End, waited in line for two hours to view Mrs. King’s body.
She had many different thought while waiting, she said, "some about Mrs. King and some about the people during the Civil Rights era. It warmed my heart to see her."She said she met and spoke to Mrs. King on a few occasions, and that each time she was poised and knowledgeable.
“Since she died, I’ve broken down about eight times,” said Pope, who declined to give her age. “The reason I broke down is because she was like a relative to me. I saw her in the casket and I wanted to get in with her. That’s how close I felt to her.”
State officials estimated at 2 p.m. that people who joined the line at that point would , wait about 90 minutes. The line is flowing and moving well, but people just keep coming.
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Casket arrives at Capitol
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Coretta Scott King’s body arrived at the state Capitol just after 11:30 a.m., greeted by some cheers and applause from the crowd already gathered there.
Gov. Sonny Perdue and his wife, Mary, and Mayor Shirley Franklin stood on the Capitol Plaza dressed somberly in black coats and suits as the carriage pulled in. All four of Mrs. King’s children were greeted by the Perdues and Franklin with hugs and words.
As the Georgia State Patrol Honor Guard lifted her casket and began carrying it inside the Gold Dome, a bagpiper played “Amazing Grace.”
Watching the casket go inside, the face of Martin Luther King III crumpled with grief. As the 10-member honor guard maneuvered the stairs, there were more cheers from the crowd, some saying “Coretta!”
Once inside the rotunda, the casket was opened and family members gathered around to pay their final respects. State lawmakers watched from above, many crying softly as the casket was opened.
Mrs. King was dressed in a pink suit, adorned with a large white flower.
As the four King children gathered over the casket, the oldest daughter, Yolanda, leaned over and touched her mother’s forehead.
After the family stepped aside, Gov. Perdue and Mary Perdue and Mayor Franklin walked up to the casket and stood for a moment. They were the first non-family members to pay their respects.
After the family and Perdues had stepped aside, Kathleen Bertrand sang a hymn, “Blessed Assurance.” Bertrand is a vice president at Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau and a well known local singer.
Outside the Capitol, some mourners tried to cut to the front of the line.
They are immediately admonished by others in the the crowd. “This is NOT the day for that!” shouted mourner Toni James, who drove down from South Carolina to pay her respects.
“This is not some rock concert where its OK to act crazy!”
At noon a steady rain began to fall on the crowd. It contrasted the brief appearance of the sun as Mrs. King’s body was taken out of the horse drawn carriage. A black horse trailer with Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home on the side met the black gleaming carriage to transport the carriage back.
There had been confusion about which direction King’s body would arrive from.
The crowd of thousands, huddled together on the corner of Washington and Mitchell, readied cell phone cameras, video equipment and cameras for the moment the carriage would come into view.
A police motorcade idled at the red light.
“There she is!” shouted Quninto Lucas, perched on a police barracade. With his view, Lucas snapped pictures for others.
— Rich Eldredge, Mae Gentry, Sonji Jacobs, Laura Woody
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Procession evokes memories
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They came alone, in pairs or with whole families. They came in suits and ties, or jeans and sweatpants. About 400 mourners from the projects and the suburbs came to the corner of Ralph David Abernathy Road and Peeples Street to watch Coretta Scott King’s body carried to the Capitol where she continued to make history.
The older members of the crowd recalled the hardships of the civil rights era and the days that came before. Younger people were there to recognize the family that had sacrificed so much for their generation.
Nathan Peeks grew up in Perry Homes on Atlanta’s west side in the 1960s. Childhood memories were scarred by images of violence and hatred.
Peeks recalled restaurant owners in downtown Atlanta during the 1960s not letting him come inside to eat because he was black.
“We saw some things that brought civil rights to our attention. I remember when they burned a cross in front of Perry Homes,” said Peeks, 53. “From that time on, it was burned in our hearts and into our spirits.â€?
Peeks said a neighhorhood man was lynched in a Westside plum orchard, where children routinely played and families gathered.
“The more I realized the actual hatred that existed, you started looking at things in a whole different light,” Peeks said.
Peeks, who has lived in metro Atlanta his whole life, came up during turbulent times. He moved to the East Lake projects, where he became active with Hosea Williams community volunteering. He recalls the Black Power movement of the 1970s, and the scourge of drugs that consumed his friends and neighbors.
“I myself got caught up in it,â€? Peeks said.
Today Peeks lives in Stone Mountain. He said he came to see King’s funeral services to honor their history. “I felt like an era was fading out. I wanted to be a part of it, to connect to it and document it,” Peeks said. “I want to give something to my grandchildren so they can remember.”
Peeks said Corretta Scott King took up her husband’s work after he was assassinated.
“They were looking for someone to take up the mantle. She became a roll model and a leader to carry on what Martin had started,â€? Peeks said. “I just feel a loss. All of them are gone. You don’t see people now taking up that mantle.”
Pat Brown of East Point recalled that after Martin Luther King was assassinated, she went to Morehouse College to watch his funeral services from Ebenezer Baptist Church to the college.
“I got to be part of that history, so I’m here to be part of this one,” Brown said. “I’ve just watched this history all through the years.”
Brown, 62, said, noting the striking difference in her emotions between that era 40 years ago and today. For Coretta Scott King, Brown felt that “she’s at peace now. She lived a long and fruitful life.”
Quvada Moreland brought her daughter Kennedy to see Coretta King’s funeral procession, to create a memory that she hopes the 8-year-old will carry with her for the rest of her life.
Moreland said Kennedy came home and told her about the principal at Bouie Elementary in Lithonia making an announcement when Mrs. King died.
“She said, ‘Mommy, we stopped for a minute in class,’” Moreland said. “Now she can be a part of this history. That’s why I’m taking photos, so she can take them back to her class.”
Moreland, 35, has no memories of the Civil Rights era, but recognized that the King family was instrumental in providing opportunities for future generations. “My feelings about her are different,” Moreland said. “They’re responsible for giving us a lot of the opportunities we have today — to go to college, to have a profession and to buy a house.”
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Lawmakers wish caucus had been consulted
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Early Saturday morning, members of the General Assembly began gathering on the third floor of the state Capitol to await the arrival of Mrs. King’s casket. Many said they were deeply saddened by her death, but pleased that Gov. Sonny Perdue had extended to her the honor of lying in state under the Gold Dome.
“This is historic and unprecedented in Georgia to have an African-American and a woman lie in state,” said Rep. Virgil Fludd (D-Tyrone). “The significance has to do with both her race and gender, and also the contributions she’s made to our society and our state. This is an appropriate honor for her contributions.”
Rep. Ernest “Coach” Williams (D-Stone Mountain) also said he believed Perdue extended a fitting honor to King. Williams said he did not know her personally, but remembered marching with her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in Albany, Ga. “It’s appropriate not just because of her husband, but because of her own legacy and her own contributions to Georgia and the United States.”
Some members of the Legislative Black Caucus expressed disappointment early Saturday that they could not stand with Gov. Perdue when King’s casket arrives at the Gold Dome.
“We really appreciate that the Governor made the gesture to have Mrs. King lie in state, but we also wish that we had been involved in the protocol and the planning,” said state Rep. Stan Watson (D-Decatur), chair of the Legislative Black Caucus. “We feel that because she’s one of our own, we should have been included in the plans.”
Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) also said he would have liked to see the Legislative Black Caucus be included in this morning’s ceremony. “The Legislative Black Caucus represents the aims, the goals, and the mission of Mrs. King’s life,” Fort said. “It would have been proper to include us for that reason.”
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Pink roses adorn rotunda
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As the procession bearing Mrs. King’s body made its way to the Capitol, the rotunda was ready for the day’s visitors. Inside the rotunda was a large wooden bier where the casket will rest. In a corner was a large photograph portrait of Mrs. King wearing a blue dress. There was also a large wreath and two large bouquets of pink roses and other flowers. Pink roses were Mrs. King’s favorite flower. A family member said on Friday that the family had chosen a pink casket with a rose motif.
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Song, cameras follow cortege
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Coretta Scott King began the last mile of her journey toward heaven at 10:30 Saturday morning, in an 18th Century glass-sided carriage. A crowd of several hundred Atlantans threw flowers and sang “We Shall Overcome” as they braved temperatures with wind chills in in the 30s.
Her cortege was led by more than a dozen motorcycle policemen. The sound of the singing also mixed with the roar of several helicopters circling overhead. Camera crews documented the occasion as did dozens of amateur photographers and videographers. Among them was Nacoleon Hillsman, 9, of Smyrna, clad in a suit and tie.
"This is important," he said. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her. He recorded the event on his own tripod video camera. He said he was making a documentary, and also would visit Ebenezer Baptist Chuch, the Capitol and the King Center, following the progress of Coretta Scott King's casket as it made its way to its final resting place.“She was an angel,” he said.
About 400 people gathered at the corner of Peeples Street and Ralph David Abernathy as the casket passed.Young and old, rich and poor, people dressed in dark suits and ties, or wearing sweatpants and jeans, chatted until someone came out and told them that her casket was about to move.
A small group started to sing “We Shall Overcome,” as the casket passed, making its way to the Capitol.
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Carriage rolls toward Capitol
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The procession carrying the body of Coretta Scott King left the Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home just after 10:30 this morning.
It was headed for the Georgia Capitol, where King will lie in state today.
Police on motorcycles escorted the horse-drawn carriage carrying the body as crowds lined the streets.
As the carriage rolled briskly through Atlanta, onlookers watched and followed on foot.
The thousands of people lined up down Mitchell Street, just south of MLK drive, Saturday morning weren’t concerned about the plummeting temperatures.
Some, like Rick Granados, of Columbus, Ohio who was at the head of the line to pay his respects to Coretta Scott King inside the state capitol, got in place at 4:30 a.m. “She was an icon in the fight for equality,� Granados said. “My business in Atlanta actually ended yesterday but I had to pay my respects.�
— Rich Eldredge
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Hardy crowd gathers as temperatures drop
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A hardy crowd of mourners gathered on the edge of Howell Park across the street from the Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home, watching as horses were placed in the harnesses of carriages that will carry Coretta Scott King to the Georgia Capitol.
Priscilla Peters said she wanted to witness the historic moment for her children, “as a legacy.�
“How could you not love the Kings? How could you not be sad?� said Robin Cermak of the West End. Cermak said while Mrs. King has been described by some as the only royalty that black people have, she disagrees.
“There have been many black kings and queens, but she is royalty. She is one of them.�
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Public tributes begin for Mrs. King
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Under cloudy and windy skies in Atlanta this morning, the nation begins saying goodbye to Coretta Scott King with public tributes that will continue through Tuesday, the day of her funeral.
King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. who died Monday at age 78, will lie in state at the state Capitol from around noon until 8 p.m.
The weather forecast calls for showers and 20- to 30-mph winds Saturday morning and a high of 49 degrees. There is a 30 percent chance of rain today with a break in the clouds expected around 6 p.m., when temperatures are expected to drop.
Her journey to the Capitol will begin at the Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home at the corner of Peeples Street and Ralph David Abernathy Avenue in southwest Atlanta.
Accompanied by her children Dexter, Bernice, Martin III and Yolanda, and other family members, King’s body will lead a horse-drawn procession at 10:30 a.m. traveling first down Ralph David Abernathy Avenue, a street named after her husband’s close associate in the civil rights movement, and eventually down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to the Capitol.
After reaching the Capitol at around 11:30 a.m., Gov. Sonny Perdue and his wife, Mary, will meet the family and casket and escort them into the Rotunda. King will be the first woman and the first African-American to lie in state at the Capitol.
After King’s body is placed in the Rotunda, the governor and King family will pay their respects privately before other family members and public officials join in between noon and 12:30 p.m. Those officials include state lawmakers, judges, former governors, and officials from the city of Atlanta and Fulton County.
At 12:30, the public will be allowed to enter the Rotunda to pay their respects. The line for the viewing will form at the corner of Mitchell and Washington streets.
Several streets around the Capitol will be closed today from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m., according to the Atlanta Police Department: Mitchell Street from Central Avenue to Capitol Avenue; and Courtland Avenue/Washington Street, from Gilmer Street to Trinity Avenue.
The public is advised to use MARTA to get to the area and to use local parking garages because authorities will strictly enforce no-parking laws.
Parking will be available at two state decks near the intersection of Jesse Hill Jr. Drive and Decatur Street. Other public parking will be available near Underground Atlanta.
Visitors will not allowed to congregate in front of the Capitol on the main plaza before King’s casket arrives. They also will have to go through metal detectors to enter the Capitol and should come prepared for the security check. Individuals who are disabled or infirm may enter the Capitol through the ground floor entrance on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. They will be escorted to the main floor via elevator.
Perdue spokesman Shane Hix said those paying tribute inside the Rotunda will be allowed to have cameras.
The doors will remain open until the last person in line at 8 p.m. files through. Afterward, After a motorcade will return her body to the Willie A. Watkins funeral home.
Look for coverage throughout the day on AJC.com.
Several local TV stations said Friday planned to cover today’s tribute:
— WSB’s coverage will begin at 10:30 a.m. and continue for two hours, or until the conclusion of the Rotunda ceremony.
— WGCL plans special coverage that will begin at 11 a.m.
— WXIA is planning live coverage from 10:30 a.m. until about 12:30 p.m.
— WAGA plans coverage at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. with special reports as warranted.
Staff writers Don Plummer, Sonji Jacobs and Jill Vejnoska contributed to this report.
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