Coretta was an activist and author in her own right who came to be known as the “First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement.” When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Coretta carried on his work. Under her leadership, the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change was founded in Atlanta. She expanded the civil rights platform to include women’s and LGBT rights and came out against the Vietnam war. In 1985, she was arrested in DC for protesting against the South African apartheid. It was through her relentless petitioning that we now commemorate MLK Jr. Day each January. In 2004 she was awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize by the Government of India. After her death in 2006, Antioch College (her alma mater) dedicated the Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom to “facilitate learning, dialogue, and action to advance social justice.”