April 27, 1927

Civil rights leader Coretta Scott King was born in Heiberger. The wife of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., she played a prominent role in continuing his vision of nonviolent protest for civil liberties after his assassination. King founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in 1968, successfully advocated to coordinate a national holiday to honor her husband, protested apartheid in South Africa, and supported many other human rights campaigns throughout her life. She published her memoir, My Life with Martin Luther King Jr., in 1969. King received the Gandhi Peace Award in 2004 and was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 2009.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

The Rev. & Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr., head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front. (World Telegram & Sun photo by Herman Hiller, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow, Coretta Scott King, speaks at a 1988 event in which a time capsule holding some of the Rev. King’s possessions is lowered into the ground at Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. (Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.