January 31, 2006 @ 10:29 am

Civil Rights Leader Coretta Scott King Dies

by: Alyssa Rashbaum

"We appreciate the prayers and condolences from people across the country," the King family said in a statement, according to The Associated Press.

right King had been hospitalized in August 2005 after she suffered a stroke and heart attack and died overnight in a location unspecified by the family. Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young announced King's death on NBC's Today Show, explaining: "I understand that she was asleep last night and her daughter [Bernice King] went in to wake her up and she was not able to and so she quietly slipped away. Her spirit will remain with us just as her husband's has."

"It's a bleak morning for me and for many people and yet it's a great morning because we have a chance to look at her and see what she did and who she was," Maya Angelou said of King this morning on on ABC's Good Morning America. "It's bleak because I can't - many of us can't hear her sweet voice but it's great because she did live, and she was ours. I mean African-Americans and white Americans and Asians, Spanish-speaking - she belonged to us and that's a great thing."

King was one of her husband's biggest supporters, working by his side to promote civil rights, and marching with him from Selma, AL to Montgomery in 1965. Following his death, King continued the campaign for civil rights, saying after his death, "I'm more determined than ever that my husband's dream will become a reality," according to the AP.

In 1969, King founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. In the early 1980s, she was named by President Carter to serve as part of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations. Recently, King had spoken out against the war in Iraq and worked to stop homophobia in the black community.

"She was truly the first lady of the human rights movement," Al Sharpton said. "The only thing worse than losing her is if we never had her."