Thousands of Mourners Pay Last Respects to King

Thousands of mourners waited in the biting cold Saturday to pay their final respects to civil rights leader Coretta Scott King, whose body lay in state in the Georgia Capitol building -- a striking contrast from the cold reaction her husband’s death elicited from a segregationist governor here 38 years ago.

By 5 p.m., about 18,000 people had come to the gold-domed Capitol in downtown Atlanta for a chance to view King, who died Monday at age 78 after battling ovarian cancer. Her casket was pulled to the statehouse by a horse-drawn carriage and escorted into the building by Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Some saw the gesture as little more than good politics in a century in which overt racism is taboo. But for many older African Americans who lived through the civil rights era, it was a hard-won and heartening tribute.

Sarai Glover, 54, of Cartersville, Ga., bitterly recalled former Gov. Lester Maddox’s refusal to fly state flags at half-staff for King’s husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., after his April 1968 assassination.

“It show you the change, don’t it?” the businesswoman said as she walked up the Capitol steps.

Glover and her sister, Angellia Snow, 52, spent about an hour moving through the line that wrapped a broad city block. Some in the crowd had gotten up before sunrise in tiny Southern towns such as Orangeburg, S.C., and Heiberger, Ala., and drove for hours to be here to pay their respects.

The slow, winding queue took them past numerous symbols of Georgia’s troubled racial history. Most started on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, near a small statue dedicated to 33 black lawmakers who were elected during Reconstruction but expelled by whites in 1868.

A couple of corners later, they passed a statue of Herman Talmadge, the former Georgia governor and U.S. senator who opposed the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling against school segregation.

At the Capitol steps, they passed the clenched-fist likeness of Thomas E. Watson, a mercurial politician who opposed lynching in the late 19th century but later ran for president as a white supremacist.

Glover and Snow counted themselves as small historical players: As middle-schoolers in 1966, they marched to the whites-only school in the town of Emerson, Ga., demanding to be let in. They were rebuffed by the principal and had rocks hurled at them by white children. Snow said they were allowed to attend white schools in 1968.

In those days, the King family emboldened the sisters to act. Over the years, they said, Coretta Scott King remained a symbol of the struggle, but also a symbol of high elegance.

“This is the closest we’ve had to royalty,” Glover said. “Her elegance, her style, her smile. The way she walked.”

By 4 p.m., the sisters entered the high-ceilinged heart of the Capitol. They moved quickly by King’s body, dressed in a pink suit, a spray of flowers at her feet.

“Elegance exemplified,” Glover said as she walked back out in the cold. “Exquisite.”

Some in the crowd had observations that were more political than emotional.

Democratic state Rep. Roger B. Bruce chided Gov. Perdue for honoring King while signing a law that requires voters to show photo ID at the polls. The law, Bruce said, will probably disenfranchise Georgia’s poor, elderly and minorities.

“There’s a lot of shenanigans going on, and I don’t want people to lose sight of that,” Bruce said.

Reginald Bohannon, a Republican from College Park, Ga., said it was the Bush administration that embodied the civil rights spirit with its emphasis on spreading democracy abroad.

“I’m sure Dr. King was against terrorism,” he said.

The temperature in Atlanta hovered at about 40 degrees, with a wind chill in the low 30s. One group of volunteers warmed the crowd with free coffee and doughnuts.

Flight attendant Jason Mitchell, 29, had been inside the rotunda. He said he was thinking about standing in line again. “Not to see her again, but to stand again,” he said. “For what she stood for.”

King was the first woman and the first African American to lie in state at the Georgia Capitol. A second viewing of her body is planned Monday at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her husband preached.

The funeral is scheduled for Tuesday at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, where the Kings’ daughter, Bernice, is a preacher. Among those planning to attend are President Bush and his wife, Laura.