A time and a place for....disrespect?

[VaSteve]

I heard this on the drive home and looked it up on CNN.com Read the bold parts. Isn't there a time and a place for this?

Not be outdone...Westboro showed up as well.

Originally Posted by cnn.com

LITHONIA, Georgia (CNN) -- Four presidents joined graying veterans of the civil rights movement Tuesday to pay last respects to Coretta Scott King, the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who became an icon of the movement herself.

President Bush and three of his predecessors -- Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and his father, George H.W. Bush -- praised King for taking up her husband's banner after his assassination in 1968.

"She endured the saddest of human cruelties with the greatest of grace," the elder Bush told mourners at the 10,000-seat New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, where the youngest of the Kings' four children, Bernice, is a minister.

"By her steadfast determination, she helped to grind away falsehoods and ignorance that had too long been used to divide our society." (Watch the elder Bush praise a 'purposeful life' -- 0:37)

The six-hour service was capped by a eulogy from Bernice King, who was 5 when her father was assassinated.

"Thank you, mother, for your incredible example of Christ-like love and obedience. We're going to miss you," she said.

Flags at federal facilities were flying at half-staff to honor King, a tribute bestowed Monday by the current president, who said he brought the "sympathy of our nation" to the funeral.

"We knew her husband only as a young man," Bush said. "But we knew Mrs. King in all the seasons of her life, and there was grace and beauty in every season."

King, 78, died January 30 at a clinic in Mexico, where she had sought alternative treatment for advanced ovarian cancer. She had suffered a severe stroke and a mild heart attack in August. (Full story)

Tens of thousands lined the streets Monday outside Atlanta, Georgia's, historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her husband and his father had preached, as her body was on public display. Many huddled under umbrellas in a cold February drizzle well into the night.

More than 115,000 people filed past King's open coffin Monday, according to the National Park Service. The historic church is part of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, which the park service oversees. (Read what mourners said about her)

More than 40,000 others viewed her body as it lay in repose in the rotunda of the Georgia Capitol, the first woman and the first African-American given such an honor.

Political edge
The service Tuesday featured tributes from political leaders, longtime friends and celebrities, including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Edward Kennedy; poet Maya Angelou; singer Stevie Wonder; and Joseph Lowery, Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson, onetime lieutenants of the slain civil rights leader.

Parts of the service had a political edge as well, with pointed reminders of King's advocacy of nonviolence and occasional jabs at the nearly three-year-old war in Iraq.

Noting the praise showered on King by the many leaders present, Lowery said, "Will words become deeds that meet needs?"


"We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there," he said in a boisterous, rhyming oration. "But Coretta knew and we know that there are weapons of misdirection right down here -- millions without health insurance, poverty abounds. For war, billions more, but no more for the poor."

Lowery's remarks and other barbs were met with bursts of applause. President Bush stood and embraced Lowery with a smile at the end of his comments.

Carter said the support of King and other civil rights figures in 1976 "legitimized a Southern governor as an acceptable candidate for president."

"The efforts of Martin and Coretta have changed America," he said, noting "they were not appreciated even at the highest level of government."


"It was difficult for them personally, with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretapping," he said.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin harkened back to King's training as a singer. She said King had joined a heavenly "freedom choir" of figures without whom, she said, she never could have become Atlanta's first black, female mayor.

"The last stanza and the highest note of Coretta King's freedom song remains to be sung," she said. "She's gathered us here today from all walks of life and all persuasions to lift our voices in songs of freedom, equality, social and economic justice."

'She uplifted people'
Former President Clinton, who traveled with the current president aboard Air Force One to Atlanta, received a rousing ovation when introduced.

In his remarks, Clinton challenged those present to carry on the Kings' legacy, just as he said Mrs. King did for her husband.

"What really matters if you believe all this stuff we've been saying is, what are we going to do with the rest of our lives?" he said.

Angelou recalled King as a friend who would call her on her birthday, April 4, the date her husband was assassinated.

"She uplifted people and causes," Angelou told CNN on Tuesday. "I would be kind of down in the dumps and refusing to have a party because Dr. King was assassinated on my birthday."

"She'd call me up and say, 'Girrrrl' ... when we were well into our 70s she'd say, 'The sun is shining outside' ... and before you know it, we'd both be laughing, or at least I'd be in a better mood." (Watch Angelou and Sharpton discuss how King affected them -- 6:21)

Funeral-goers were met outside the church by a protest by members of the Westboro Baptist Church. The Topeka, Kansas-based congregation is known for its anti-gay stands and frequently pickets the funerals of people supportive of gay rights, as Mrs. King was.

[oldE]

I think that was an appropriate time and place.
If political people want to make hay by "paying their respects" at the funeral of a woman who fought so long and hard against a system which tried to beat her back, they better have their helmets and flak jackets on. She remains a political force even in death.
Some might judge the war against oppression to be over, but I think we will look back in another 50 years and sadly acknowledge the quiet skirmishes in the closing years of the war. The battles have not all been won. There are still people who will judge you by the color of your skin or where you were born or what God you pray to. Do not become complacent. Those words were spoken because they need to be said.
Les

[Shaun @ Tru6]

I can see how this would seem disrespectful, but I put in the column "highly respectful" showing a real understanding of her life, goals and paying a final tribute to what she believed in, what she was all about.

[VINMAN]

Lowery and Carter are both P.O.S.. Not the time or place.

Period.

[Rodeo]

The woman spent her life fighting poverty and oppression, speaking "truth to power." She was against the war, and knew all too well what happens when the executive (a Dem at the time) wields unchecked power to wiretap citizens.

Entirely appropriate that her life be celebrated in that manner.

I notice the only people that are complaining are 180 degrees from Ms. King politically. If anyone is "politicizing" the funeral, it's them, for their own political advantage.

[RallyJon]

Forgive my ignorance, but what did Coretta Scott King do that was so significant, other than the vaporous generalization, "carry on the great work of her husband"? Certainly she was a symbol for his tremendous accomplishments, but I don't get the sense that she was any sort of leader after his death.

I Googled the following summary...

Mrs. Coretta Scott King’s other accomplishments

* spoke/preached at St. Paul's Cathedral in England
* created, planned, and sought funding for the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta
* established in 1969 the annual Coretta Scott King Award to honor African American authors of outstanding educational writings
* established in 1979 an additional Award to honor African American illustrators
* assured recognition for the civil rights movement by seeing her late husband’s birthday become a national holiday
* co-chaired the Full Employment Action Council, instituted the Black Leadership Forum, the National Black Coalition for Voter Participation and the Black Leadership Roundtable
* sought to bring out the truth of her husband’s assassination by establishing that Ray did not act alone in the commission of the murder, but was instead part of a larger conspiracy; because of the materials she had gathered over the years, a 1999 Tennessee jury found that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy, not of the action of a lone killer

[VaSteve]

I will admit that I didn't follow CSK's works too closely, but I took it this speech to be more of a slam of the president and current events than a memorialization of someone's life. It just seemed to be too conveniet to drop in a slam on these issues.

[Rick Lee]

I remember when she spoke at Pitt when I was a senior there. I think her fee was around $20k at the time. I certainly pity a grieving widow and especially those folks who were on the front lines of the real Civil Rights movement. But I fear MLK turns in his grave when he hears what his then-compatriots say now.

BTW, Carter is an embarrassment. His passport should be revoked. I'd take Clinton as a lifetime-appointed President over a Carter second term. Sadly, Carter is still eligible to run for pres. He is a traitor.

[Rodeo]

From the King Center website:

Coretta Scott King is one of the most influential women leaders in our world today. Prepared by her family, education, and personality for a life committed to social justice and peace, she entered the world stage in 1955 as wife of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and as a leading participant in the American Civil Rights Movement. Her remarkable partnership with Dr. King resulted not only in four talented children, but in a life devoted to the highest values of human dignity in service to social change. Mrs. King has traveled throughout our nation and world speaking out on behalf of racial and economic justice, women's and children's rights, gay and lesbian dignity, religious freedom, the needs of the poor and homeless, full-employment, health care, educational opportunities, nuclear disarmament and ecological sanity. In her distinguished and productive career, she has lent her support to democracy movements world-wide and served as a consultant to many world leaders, including Corazon Aquino, Kenneth Kaunda, and Nelson Mandela.



Born and raised in Marion, Alabama, Coretta Scott graduated valedictorian from Lincoln High School. She received a B.A. in music and education from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and then went on to study concert singing at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music, where she earned a degree in voice and violin. While in Boston she met Martin Luther King, Jr. who was then studying for his doctorate in systematic theology at Boston University. They were married on June 18, 1953, and in September 1954 took up residence in Montgomery, Alabama, with Coretta Scott King assuming the many functions of pastor's wife at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.



During Dr. King's career, Mrs. King devoted most of her time to raising their four children: Yolanda Denise (1955), Martin Luther, III (1957), Dexter Scott (1961), and Bernice Albertine (1963). From the earliest days, however, she balanced mothering and movement work, speaking before church, civic, college, fraternal and peace groups. She conceived and performed a series of favorably-reviewed Freedom Concerts which combined prose and poetry narration with musical selections and functioned as fundraisers for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the direct action organization of which Dr. King served as first president. In 1957, she and Dr. King journeyed to Ghana to mark that country's independence. In 1958, they spent a belated honeymoon in Mexico, where they observed first-hand the immense gulf between extreme wealth and extreme poverty. In 1959, Dr. and Mrs. King spent nearly a month in India on a pilgrimage to disciples and sites associated with Mahatma Gandhi. In 1964, she accompanied him to Oslo, Norway, where he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Even prior to her husband's public stand against the Vietnam War in 1967, Mrs. King functioned as liaison to peace and justice organizations, and as mediator to public officials on behalf of the unheard.



Since her husband's assassination in 1968, Mrs. King has devoted much of her energy and attention to developing programs and building the Atlanta-based Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change as a living memorial to her husband's life and dream. Situated in the Freedom Hall complex encircling Dr. King's tomb, The King Center is part of a 23-acre national historic park which includes his birth home, and which hosts over one million visitors a year. For 27 years (1968-1995), Mrs. King devoted her life to developing The King Center, the first institution built in memory of an African American leader. As founding President, Chair, and Chief Executive Officer, she dedicated herself to providing local, national and international programs that have trained tens of thousands of people in Dr. King's philosophy and methods; she guided the creation and housing of the largest archives of documents from the Civil Rights Movement; and, perhaps her greatest legacy after establishing The King Center itself, Mrs. King spearheaded the massive educational and lobbying campaign to establish Dr. King's birthday as a national holiday. In 1983, an act of Congress instituted the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday Commission, which she chaired for its duration. And in January 1986, Mrs. King oversaw the first legal holiday in honor of her husband--a holiday which has come to be celebrated by millions of people world-wide and, in some form, in over 100 countries.



Coretta Scott King has carried the message of nonviolence and the dream of the beloved community to almost every corner of our nation and globe. She has led goodwill missions to many countries in Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia. She has spoken at many of history's most massive peace and justice rallies. She served as a Women's Strike for Peace delegate to the seventeen-nation Disarmament Conference in Geneva, Switzerland in 1962. She is the first woman to deliver the class day address at Harvard, and the first woman to preach at a statutory service at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.



A life-long advocate of interracial coalitions, in 1974 Mrs. King formed a broad coalition of over 100 religious, labor, business, civil and women's rights organizations dedicated to a national policy of full employment and equal economic opportunity, as Co-Chair of the Full Employment Action Council. In 1983, she brought together more than 800 human rights organizations to form the Coalition of Conscience, sponsors of the 20th Anniversary March on Washington, until then the largest demonstration in our nation's capital. In 1987, she helped lead a national Mobilization Against Fear and Intimidation in Forsyth County, Georgia. In 1988, she re-convened the Coalition of Conscience for the 25th anniversary of the March on Washington. In preparation for the Reagan-Gorbachev talks, in 1988 she served as head of the U.S. delegation of Women for a Meaningful Summit in Athens, Greece; and in 1990, as the USSR was redefining itself, Mrs. King was co-convener of the Soviet-American Women's Summit in Washington, DC.



Always close to her family, in 1985 Mrs. King and three of her children were arrested at the South African embassy in Washington, DC, for protesting against apartheid. And, in 1995 she turned over leadership of the Center to her son, Dexter Scott King, who served as Chairman, President & CEO until January 2004. On that date, Mrs. King was named interim Chair and her eldest son Martin Luther King, III assumed the leadership position of President & CEO.



One of the most influential African-American leaders of our time, Mrs. King has received honorary doctorates from over 60 colleges and universities; has authored three books and a nationally-syndicated column; and has served on, and helped found, dozens of organizations, including the Black Leadership Forum, the National Black Coalition for Voter Participation, and the Black Leadership Roundtable.



She has dialogued with heads of state, including prime ministers and presidents; and she has put in time on picket lines with welfare rights mothers. She has met with great spiritual leaders, including Pope John Paul, the Dalai Lama, Dorothy Day, and Bishop Desmond Tutu. She has witnessed the historic handshake between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chairman Yassir Arafat at the signing of the Middle East Peace Accords. She has stood with Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg when he became South Africa's first democratically-elected president. A woman of wisdom, compassion and vision, Coretta Scott King has tried to make ours a better world and, in the process, has made history.

[Tobra]

Originally posted by Rodeo
The woman spent her life fighting poverty and oppression, speaking "truth to power." She was against the war, and knew all too well what happens when the executive (a Dem at the time) wields unchecked power to wiretap citizens.

Entirely appropriate that her life be celebrated in that manner.

I notice the only people that are complaining are 180 degrees from Ms. King politically. If anyone is "politicizing" the funeral, it's them, for their own political advantage.

I have no doubt this will be the funniest thing I read about this. I sincerely thank you for making me laugh aloud about a matter I would normally not find the least bit amusing.