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Mayor Allen went to the public information station for her. He returned a few minutes later, “looking grave and white.” He then gave her the terrible news, confirming the worst. “Of course I already knew,” Coretta wrote, “but it had not yet been said . I had been trying to prepare myself to hear that final word, to think and accept it.” At 7:05 p . m ., Martin Luther King, Jr., just 39 years old, had been pronounced dead at St. Joseph’s Hospital. With her own 41st birthday just 23 days away, Coretta Scott King was a widow . Coretta’s tears and those of the people with her flowed unchecked. When the mayor finally asked her if she wanted to continue to Memphis, Coretta decided that her first order of business was to get home to her children. A TEST OF STRENGTH The ride back from the airport with the others was made in silence, although Coretta was comforted by the presence of her family and friends. She couldn’t help but reflect on the coincidence of Martin’smartyrdom taking place the week before Easter—which, of course, observes Jesus’s death and resurrection. She recalled in her autobiography: My husband had always talked of his own readiness to give his life for a cause he believed in … that giving himself completely would … [inspire] other people. This would mean the he would be resurrected in the lives of other people who dedicated themselves to a great cause…And even in those first awful moments, it went through my mind that it was somehow appropriate that Martin Luther King’s supreme sacrifice should come at the Easter season.

She then turned her mind to what was most important: what to tell the children. Arriving home, Coretta found that her three youngest—Marty, Dexter, and

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