Coretta Scott King was a civil rights leader, author, activist, and the wife of Martin Luther King Jr.

As an advocate for African-American equality, she was a leader of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. King was also a singer who often involved music in her civil rights work.

King played a central role in the years after her husband's assassination in 1968 when she took on the leadership of the effort for racial equality herself and became active in the Women's Movement. King founded the King Center and sought to make his birthday a national holiday.

She later broadened her scope to include both advocacies for LGBTQ rights and opposition to apartheid.

Her telephone conversation with John F. Kennedy during the 1960 presidential election has been credited by historians for mustering African-American voters.

She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame, the National Women's Hall of Fame, and was the first African American to lie in state at the Georgia State Capitol. King has been referred to as the "First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement".

In 1969 she established an annual Coretta Scott King Award to honor an African American author of an outstanding text for children, and in 1979 a similar award was added to honor an outstanding African American illustrator.

Source: Wikipedia and Britannica