Civil rights leader’s privacy

Re “The other woman in King’s life,” Current, Feb. 5

Have you no sense of decency? To publish a piece on the private life of Martin Luther King Jr. while Coretta Scott King lies in state is as unseemly as desecrating our founding fathers, not to mention the prophet Muhammad or Jesus.

There is hardly a piece written about King or Coretta that does not remind one that their marriage was not a perfect replication of romantic monogamy. Too often one is reminded that King drank whiskey and philandered, as if that diminished either his accomplishments or his love for Coretta. Must we also be told that King had a special relationship outside his marriage with a woman who is unnamed to protect her privacy? What about the Kings’ privacy? Do they not deserve the same respect accorded this other woman?

Good taste and a sense of decency would have, in honor of Coretta, rejected David J. Garrow’s demeaning column.

JAY W. FRIEDMAN

Los Angeles

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What a remarkably sensitive and gracious portrayal of King’s “other wife.” Others will no doubt take great pains to use the information about the woman to impugn the historical but yet-unfinished march to freedom for blacks and others of color. King had his peccadilloes, but they were common to most and represent the driving factors in most of us. Emotional support no doubt was of the utmost importance.

Garrow writes what must be written in a historical account of such an influential man.

RALPH MITCHELL

Monterey Park