Photo credits: Wally McNamee/Corbis via Getty Images

Coretta Scott (pictured) was born on April 27, 1927, in Marion, Alabama.

She would eventually marry civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  She worked alongside him to secure equal rights for African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and ’60s. However, her husband was assassinated in 1968.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King had four children together.

Mrs. Scott King continued his life’s work by establishing the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia. She was also the driving force behind the designation of her husband’s birthday as a national holiday (President Ronald Reagan signed the bill in 1983).

She was also an accomplished author and regular contributor to CNN. She suffered a heart attack in August 2005 and passed away in late January 2006. As a CNN contributor, Mrs. Scott King was an adamant advocate of continuing the same fight for black civil rights that was needed while her husband was still alive.

She was 78 years of age at the time of her death (Middleton, 2012).

Reference: Middleton, B. (2012, April 27) This Day in Black History: April 27, 1927. BET.com https://www.bet.com/news/national/2012/04/27/this-day-in-black-history-april-27-1927.html

*BlackThen.com writer/historian Victor Trammell edited and contributed to this report.