Anita Lugo King, 77; She Co-Founded CORE of California With Husband
Anita Lugo King, a co-founder of the Congress of Racial Equality of California who with her husband, Celes King III, launched one of the first African American-owned bail bond agencies in Los Angeles, has died. She was 77.
King died in her sleep Saturday, while visiting her granddaughter and great-grandchildren, in Las Vegas. Her husband died on April 12.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. Nov. 15, 2003 For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday November 15, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 84 words Type of Material: Correction
King obituary -- The obituary of Anita Lugo King that appeared in Friday’s California section accurately stated that she and her late husband, Celes King III, co-founded the Congress of Racial Equality of California in 1984 and that it originated as a national CORE organization branch that they founded in 1975. Their branch was not the first in California, as might be inferred, however. There previously had been a number of local CORE chapters in the state, including at least two in Los Angeles.
A native of Los Angeles, Anita King was the oldest of nine siblings. She married Celes King in 1941; they were married 61 years.
King and her husband managed the Dunbar Hotel on Central Avenue from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. In 1962, Anita King was instrumental in refurbishing the hotel, then owned by her husband’s uncle, James C. Nelson, as well as establishing the hotel’s King Cocktail Lounge.
The Kings launched their bail bond firm, the Celes King Bail Bond Agency, in South-Central Los Angeles in 1951. Their daughter, Teri, has run the business since 1998.
The agency is in the Celes King Building, which is home to the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) of California.
King and her husband founded it in 1975 as a branch of the national CORE civil rights organization, which was founded to battle discrimination in the South nonviolently.
In 1984, the Kings’ branch became a California-chartered organization that is now only loosely affiliated with the national CORE. Anita King served as a lifetime board member.
“In a word, she’s the godmother of the organization,” the chairman of CORE of California, Adrian Dove, said Thursday.
“She was kind of like a conscience, in a way -- she was a very outspoken woman, and if she saw something that wasn’t going to the degree it should, she would step in,” Dove said.
“She was very highly respected.”
Dove said CORE of California “stands apart as one of the most aggressive organizations focusing on education and children and seniors.” Anita King, he said, took a particular interest in young people.
“On behalf of CORE, she went into the schools and gave inspirational talks,” he said. “She’d teach them how to be self-confident.”
Teri King said her mother “was very much interested in keeping multicultural harmony in the community, especially the Hispanic, black and Korean community.”
In the late ‘80s and into the ‘90s, she said, her mother “was instrumental in counseling young people and children and helped them understand that diversity is good.”
King, who was a delegate to several Republican National Conventions, was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women in 1991.
She also helped launch a non-governmental organization to assist women and children worldwide in the 1980s.
In addition to her daughter Teri, she is survived by two sons, Celestus IV “Mike” and Tobi, both of Val Verde Park, Calif.; eight grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday at the Inglewood Mortuary, 3801 Manchester Blvd., Inglewood.
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