On this date in history, April 27, 2010, Coretta Scott King was born in Marion, Alabama. She died in 2006.
Less than a year after her husband Martin Luther King was assassinated we were in the High Museum admiring the Rodin statue that Paris presented to Atlanta, as a gift as a memorial to the many Atlanta Art appreciators that were killed in a plane wreck just outside of Paris in 1962.
I sensed a movement in my peripheral vision and turned my vision to my side and there was Mrs. King standing right beside me studying the same sculpture.
I was thinking what could I say witty and intelligent to show her I was a man of the world. Hmmmm? Nothing came to mind. So, we continue to stand side by side studying the statue, not saying a word.
Should I show her my raw humor by saying something crude and down to earth? No, my inner self said. “Keep your mouth shut!”
Frankly, I was in awed of how graceful and quiet she was. I was speechless, and it is probably a good thing.
Maybe she had something witty to say too and her inner self was commanding her to keep her mouth also. I doubt it.
Years after that encounter her niece (her brother’s daughter)was a carrier at the same post office that I was a clerk at. She was a hard sincere worker that always had a sense of humor about her. And I know she appreciated my blunt humor.
The statue is now outside, overlooking Peachtree Street.