Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s Queen
On today which would have been Dr King’s 95th birthday and we got snow, which means all King related events are cancelled. Dr Bernice King is scheduled to visit and speak on this Friday.
I woke up thinking about how not many people give credit where credit is due to the women that held down the household and raised the babies so that Martin and Malcolm and the other men of the movements could do the footwork in those segregated streets.
How the kids missed out on having their fathers be active in their day to day lives. Reminds of the conversation with Kim Osorio and Tracey Wapples had during HipHop Summit this past October of how they forget about the woman of HipHop behind the scenes that made it all possible but are rarely mentioned today as Hiphop turned fifty in 2023.
In many history books often is left out about the backbone to many movements
How we never even get honorable mention for us and we don’t mind that part because we understand that the real work is done at home being mother and wife no matter what the man does, often times work comes before the kids because these men are the providers and breadwinners.
Men are often more loyal to a job or career than to their families. I have experienced this part firsthand so I can speak from experience but I am grateful that I could pursue my dreams while maintain a happy healthy household.
Today in 2024 we have so much modern technology but back in those days it was not so easy to pick up a phone and call or look his location I couldn’t imainge what it must’ve been like to wonder and worry when you’d get that phone call about your husband/lover was gone until I did get that phone call.
The mothers and children of the Civil Rights sacrificed so much so that my kids and other kids could live inside Martin and Malcolm’s dream. I can picture Mrs Coretta Scott King having many sleepless nights and early mornings getting the kids ready alone for school and church knowing that they had to always look picture perfect every time they stepped out the door because the world was watching and they were a direct reflection of their parents but if they didn’t look good it was something that Mrs King was not doing. How she must’ve always had to look over shoulders to make sure she was safe and no hurt or harm would ever come to her kids. How she had to be a praying woman and her knees probably had those scars that they say all little girls have on our knees and how she had to keep herself flawless anytime she went anywhere because God forbid if she looked like what she was going through, if one strand of hair had been out of place how she would’ve been talked about among the rumors of affairs and other women yet she still carried herself posed with respect and dignity and honor that would be fitting of a King’s wife.
They say when you’re with your person, our twin flame, you’re one person in two bodies and your hearts are synced up, the pain she must’ve felt when those bullets ripped through her husband’s flesh because he was hated because of the prophecy he had to fulfill in fight for that dream to the mountaintop. So that in 2024 my baby can go to school to be bullied for the color of her skin and the coily texture of her hair.
How Dr King’s death affected my grandma bringing her to tears that even her very own son had never seen her cry before but that’s a day he’ll never forget as his saddest memory even though she had never met the man. Yet his own wife and children had to grieve publicly and I can only say that I am grateful social media didn’t exist in 1968 because of the lack of respect for the families. We were glued to the scenes during Nipsey Hussle’s murder and having his funeral be broadcast live for the world to see how Lauren London was coping and what she was wearing.
Can you imaginge when King had his dream literally his purpose from God how he must’ve wrestled with the thoughts thinking I’m just one man I can’t do all of this alone and God answered saying that’s why I am sending you a helpmate, a real queen from your rib that can pick you up on those days you feel down and lost.
I know when you have a dream that others can not see some will laugh some will try to talk you out of that dream but Dr King realized that ‘His Dream’ wasn’t a vision for the blind but a calling to lead a multide.
Mrs Coretta Scott King removing the knives out of his back and nursing his wounds while encouraging him to do what God called him to do and even though that meant he would not be around much and that she would have be both parents in his absence, but he was able to walk in his purpose because of the strong woman he was blessed with. Dr King knew that she was the best woman for the job.
I have never been a wife but I know after the hard work is done and kids are tucked away in bed you’re up waiting for him to make home safely and when he does come home with the weight of the world on his shoulders and lays it all on you. When you are the one and only that listens to his dreams and his reality and you hear his fears that he’ll never really admit openly to discuss that as a black man but you know anyway that they are there. So you tell him you got him and you are there for love and support and whatever else might come up no matter the cost of putting your own dreams away tucked in the nightstand.
I am sure many times Mrs King had to encourage Dr King to pray about and rest up because tomorrow is another day to fight even harder because she believed in him and that was just what he needed to face another day’s battle.
Nobody talks about how Mrs Coretta Scott-King had to carry the weight of his dream so that it could come to pass and years later when the world would finally celebrate his birthday every January she would remember and relive those hard times knowing she was his backbone to the movement but our history lessons and google searches don’t give her credit which I’m sure she was never looking for but always knew her scarifies would be forgotten or overlooked. Or how many times she had to cover for him when he missed birthdays and special events when she had to double up and be mommy and daddy how she was Santa and tooth fairy but not forgetting she was the First Lady of church another heavy title in the black community because we all know how judgmental the church folks are especially in the south.
I can only imainge the Mother board looking to see if her hat and purses and shoes matched while others were asking her for help in the community, yet criticizing her only because she was his wife.
How until she took her last breathe they still titled her the wife of the late Dr King.
I wonder why she never remarried, I know it is not my business but hell we’re always in other people’s business anyways. But I guess no other men can fill the shoes of such a great king as Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
Mrs Coretta Scott King was truly a role model she never asked to be, the widow she didn’t sign up for and the single mother she didn’t dream of.
However, to whom much is give much is required, so in a time when we are always talking about a soft girl era she probably never had the luxury to get hers until later in her life because of her vows to the man with a dream. While he was alive he was away always on the road when he was home he was a pastor, leader to his flock.
I briefly dated a Capricorn pastor that was born on Dr King’s birthday some 52 years later, who said that the preacher that preaches the best sermon gets the most ass and he was so serious and that was probably the only true thing he said to me and I believe every word he said that day. So the days when Mrs King was sitting on that front pew being watched and studied by women that were waiting for the services to be done to throw themselves at her husband not knowing that they could not be half the woman she was no matter how hard they tried. I know her name was brought up by women who could never understand the reason why she loved him and was committed to help him fulfill a dream that would eventually snatch his life away and leave her to raise their four children. So her soft era was stolen because as a single black mother of four there is no time to be soft when you have regular mouths to feed but these were King’s kids the assignment was greater the pressure was larger the calling was bigger to keep Dr King’s legacy alive through his kids’ kids and that’s heavy because every time she stepped out the door all eyes were upon her waiting watching and judging to see if she would make it or fall off. How would she be able to raise King’s kids without her King, would they be able to follow heir their father’s footsteps, would the boys be raised to be to be good men without a father or could the girls be queens like their mother?
Would their hearts turn cold because the world took their father because of the same hatred that he was fighting against is the same cause that snatched his life away at age 39 never seeing 40. When they say that the average man today does not mature until 42-44 years old which King never saw.
In 2024 their kids and their grandkids and great grandkids are living proof living in his dream. There’s no mutt dirt or scandal in Dr King’s legacy and for that I give all due respect to Mrs Coretta Scott King.
