Holding hands on the battleground of freedom – mlk50.com

Illustrations by Gregory Christie

EDITORS NOTE: To celebrate the sustaining power of love, we asked Memphis author Alice Faye Duncan to share the story of Coretta Scott King and her loyalty to Martin Luther King Jr. Its a story she tells in her forthcoming 2023 book Corettas JourneyThe Life and Times of Coretta Scott King (Calkins Creek Press). Duncan sees their love as the perfect study in cosmic devotion.

Few know Coretta Scott Kings journey from girlhood in Alabama to activist and prophet, speaking across the nation promoting nonviolence as a way of life. She challenged the Black civil rights patriarchy after Martin Luther Kings death. It was this fiery, unflappable, and resolute version of herself that captured Martins heart on their first date in Boston in 1951.

As February is the month to extol love and Black history, I offer you ten Tanka poems. These spare verses recall 1955, the year Coretta and Martin were a young couple with a new baby in Montgomery, Alabama. Martin could not perceive that Montgomerys boycott was the start of a liberation movement and that Corettas parents, Obie and Bernice Scott, had raised a woman who was the perfect love to walk with him and hold his trembling hand on the battleground for freedom.

Originating in Japan, Tanka poems include five lines with 31 syllables (5-7-5-7-7). I chose this simple form to make a complex love story accessible to readers across all levels of understanding. What did Gwendolyn Brooks say? Poetry is life distilled. And here is my distilled understanding of the greatest love story that continues to keep on giving.

Coretta Scott King

Martin Luther King Jr.

Venus and Saturn

A convergence of planets

A cosmic union of fate

Coretta Scott King

The songbird and preachers wife

Dexter Baptist Church

Dr. King preached like Moses

Chattered Montgomery folks

Rosa Parks rebelled

A nonviolent activist

Stubborn like granite

Seamstress took a front bus seat

Arrested for her protest

Thick black clouds of change

Swept across Montgomery

Jim Crow squawked at death

Black folks put on walking shoes

Boycotted city buses

Dr. King stood up

Fanned the flames on Jim Crows pyre

Fiery-tongued preacher

Pretty wife and newborn child

His family soon a target

BOOM! Kings home was bombed

The bus boycott carried on

Fifty thousand strong

Black maids walked in snow and rain

December to December

BOOM! Kings home was bombed

Coretta and baby cried

Martin grew fearful

SaidGo to your fathers house

Coretta refused to leave

Obadiah Scott

SaidCome home to Heiberger

Coretta saidNO

Venus and Saturn converged

It was not a time to run

Bernice understood

Coretta was Obies seed

Fireproof heart of faith

Baptized in muddy waters

A woman born for battle

Coretta Scott King

Venus and Saturn converged

Two agents for change

Marched down highways and bridges

Singing We shall not be moved

Alice Faye Duncan lives in Memphis and is a National Board educator who writes poetry and picture books for children to help them remember important, but forgotten moments from American history. Her newest titles include Opal Lee and What it Means To Be Free and EvictedThe Struggle for the Right to Vote. Free teacher guides for both books can be found at http://www.alicefayeduncan.com.

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Holding hands on the battleground of freedom - mlk50.com