Alberta Christine Williams King (September 13, 1904 - June 30, 1974) was Martin Luther King Jr.'s mother and the wife of Martin Luther King Sr. She played a significant role in the affairs of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. She was shot and killed in the church six years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Video Alberta Williams King
Life and career
Alberta Christine Williams was born on September 13, 1904, to Reverend Adam Daniel Williams (1863-1931), at the time preacher of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and Jennie Celeste Williams (née Parks; 1873-1941). Alberta Williams graduated from high school at the Spelman Seminary, and earned a teaching certificate at the Hampton Normal and Industrial Institute (now Hampton University) in 1924.
Williams met Martin L. King (then known as Michael King), whose sister Woodie was boarding with her parents, shortly before she left for Hampton. After graduating, she announced her engagement to King at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. She taught for a short time before their Thanksgiving Day 1926 wedding, but she had to quit because married female teachers were not then allowed.
Their first child, daughter Willie Christine King, was born on September 11, 1927. Martin Luther King Jr. followed on January 15, 1929, then Alfred Daniel Williams King I, named after his grandfather, on July 30, 1930. About this time, Michael King changed his name to Martin Luther King Sr.
Alberta King worked hard to instill self-respect into her children. In an essay he wrote at Crozer Seminary, Martin Luther King Jr., who was always close to her, wrote that she "was behind the scenes setting forth those motherly cares, the lack of which leaves a missing link in life."
Alberta King's mother died on May 18, 1941, of a heart attack. The King family later moved to a large yellow brick house three blocks away. Alberta would serve as the organizer and president of the Ebenezer Women's Committee from 1950 to 1962. She was also a talented musician who served as the choir organist and director at Ebenezer, which may have contributed to the respect her son had for the Black arts. By the end of this period, Martin Luther King Sr. and Jr. were joint pastors of the church.
Maps Alberta Williams King
Family tragedies, 1968-1974
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. King was in Memphis to lead a march in support of the local sanitation workers' union. He was pronounced dead one hour later. Mrs. King, a source of strength after her son's assassination, faced fresh tragedy the next year when her younger son and last-born child, Alfred Daniel Williams King I, who had become the assistant pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, drowned in his pool.
Death
Alberta King was shot and killed on June 30, 1974, at age 69, by Marcus Wayne Chenault, a 23-year-old black man from Ohio while sitting at the organ of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Chenault stated that he shot King because "all Christians are my enemies", and claimed that he had decided that black ministers were a menace to black people. He said his original target had been Martin Luther King Sr., but he had decided to shoot his wife instead because she was close to him. Edward Boykin, one of the church's deacons, was also killed in the attack, and a woman was wounded. Alberta was interred at the South View Cemetery in Atlanta. Martin Luther King Sr. died of a heart attack on November 11, 1984, at age 84 and was interred next to her.
Chenault was sentenced to death; although this sentence was upheld on appeal, he was later resentenced to life in prison, partially as a result of the King family's opposition to the death penalty. On August 3, 1995, he suffered a stroke, and was taken to a hospital, where he died of complications from his stroke on August 19, at age 44.
Notes
References
- The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr. Volume I: Called to Serve, January 1929-June 1951 (University of California Press, 1992) Introduction
- The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. (New York: Warner Book, 1998) Chapter 1 edited by Clayborne Carson
- Martin Luther King Jr., "Autobiography of Religious Development," 22 November 1950
- Daddy King and Me: Memories of the Forgotten Father of the Civil Rights Movement. Continental Shelf Publishing, 2009; Chapter Four, p. 69.
External Links
- Stanford University biography of Alberta King
- African American registry article on death of Alberta King
- Alberta Williams King at Find a Grave
- The King Center biography of Martin Luther King Jr.
Source of article : Wikipedia
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