Coretta Scott King was no prop
MLK50: Justice Through Journalism
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At MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, we honor the values of our namesake and revere his work. We also know, as King did, that he didn’t work alone.?
Among his closest advisers was his wife, Coretta Scott King. She was no prop.
I’m referencing the subtweet response her daughter Bernice King seemed to direct to actor Jonathan Majors. Majors was on track to play a big part in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Disney building its entire story arc around his Kang the Conqueror role. That is until he was found guilty in December of reckless assault and harassment, after an incident with his ex-girlfriend. Among the evidence presented during the trial was a recording in which Majors could be heard referring to himself as a “great man,” and suggested she should be supporting him like Coretta Scott King and Michelle Obama did with their husbands.?
After his conviction, Majors, in an interview, said his new girlfriend, the actor Meagan Good, was “an angel. She’s held me down like a Coretta.”?
During that same interview, Majors said invoking King and Obama was aspirational, an analogy for what he’s aspiring to be. He needed, he said, his ex to “make the same sacrifices that I am making.”
If I rolled my eyes any farther back, I’d do damage.
I still think everyone should see “The Last Black Man Standing in San Francisco,” which Majors starred in before he opened his fool mouth. Also Majors told TMZ, after online pushback, that ?he’d intended to convey his respect for Mrs. King, “her achievements, and both her personal legacy and the one she shares with her husband…”
But that’s not what he did.?
I want to share something from another Jonathan — Jonathan Eig, author of “King: A Life,” a lengthy and well-researched book about King I’ve been slowly moving through. Eig shares an excerpt from a 1965 television interview with King, where he was asked if he had educated his wife on matters of activism.
“Well, it may have been the other way around. I think at many points she educated me. When I met her, she was very concerned about all the things we are trying to do now. I never will forget the first discussion we had when we met was the whole question of racial inequality and economic inequality and the question of peace … I wish I could say to satisfy my masculine ego that I led her down this path, but I must say we went down together, because she was as actively involved when we met as she is now.”
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I don’t have anything against Meagan Good, but if she was like Coretta Scott King she would have educated Majors on why it would not be a good idea to double down on the idea of asking women to be “a Coretta’ or comparing himself to perhaps the greatest American civil rights leader and the first Black president of the United States.?
And if Majors were King (or Obama), he’d know that, sometimes, even a great man needs help figuring things out.?
Adrienne Johnson Martin is executive editor of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Contact her at [email protected]
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