She wasn’t just the wife of an American hero, she was an icon in her own right. Coretta Scott King was her high school valedictorian at Lincoln Normal School in 1945. She played trumpet and piano, sang and participated in school musicals. In College, at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She became active in the nascent civil rights movement; she joined the Antioch chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) She got a scholarship to continue her musical training at the New England Conservatory in Boston where she met MLK Jr.
Although usually at her husband's side, she also made solo appearances at various civil rights functions & also performed at benefit concerts. After the death of MLK Jr. She founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non Violent Social Change in 1981 in Atlanta.She earned numerous awards over the years for her commitment to activism. One of the more prominent awards was that she was named "Woman of the Year" two times, in 1960 and 1968.