Widow of Martin Luther King dies

Just caught this on BBC News Online...
Widow of Martin Luther King dies

Body of BBC News Online article...
Coretta Scott King, the widow of US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, has died aged 78, US media reports say. Mrs King, who carried on her husband's work after he was assassinated in 1968, had reportedly suffered poor health.

Speaking in 2003 on the 40th anniversary of her husband's best known speech, Mrs King urged the crowds to follow the peaceful path he preached.

News of the mother-of-four's death was reported by former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young to US network NBC television.

Mr Young, also a civil rights campaigner, said Mrs King had died in her sleep on Monday night.

She had suffered a serious stroke and heart attack in 2005 and earlier this month missed the public marking of her husband's birthday for the first time in two decades.

Mrs King raised the couple's four children following her husband's death, at the same time as working to secure his legacy. They married in 1953.

She recalled in her autobiography, My Life with Martin Luther King Jr, how she had felt compelled to carry on the civil rights movement.

"Because his task was not finished, I felt that I must re-dedicate myself to the completion of his work," she wrote.

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BBC News Online: Widow of Martin Luther King dies