Respect Due - Coretta Scott King

Another great civil rights leader has passed. Sadly, the Right has taken to honoring Mrs. King by trying to revise her legacy as being one that was nonpolitical.

Not true. I'll honor Mrs. King, instead, by reflecting on some of her own words.

In 2003, shortly before the Invaision of Iraq, she urged world leaders to "seek peaceful alternatives to the war with Iraq." In 2004, she returned to her plea of nonviolence stating: "Peaceful ends can only be reached through peaceful means." In 2005, she continued:

"It's as if he were writing for this period," King said in a rare public appearance on what would have been her husband's 76th birthday. "Nonviolence would work today, it would work 2,000 years from now, it would work 5,000 years from now.

"If Martin's philosophy had been lived out in Iraq, we wouldn't have bin Laden," she said.

On the Rights of Lesbian and Gay People she said:

"I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice," she said. "But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people," she said. - Reuters, March 31, 1998. More on her opposition to discrimination based on sexual orientation and equal treatment of gays and lesbians.