10,000 at rites for Coretta Scott King

LITHONIA, Ga. — When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, President Lyndon Johnson didn't attend his funeral, choosing instead to meet with his Cabinet about the Vietnam War.

But at services for Coretta Scott King, four U.S. presidents took turns Tuesday saluting "the first lady of the civil rights movement" for her efforts of more than 40 years to realize her husband's dream of racial equality.

They joined 10,000 other mourners — including numerous members of Congress and many gray-haired veterans of the struggle for civil rights — to say goodbye to King's widow, who died Jan. 30 at age 78 after battling ovarian cancer and the effects of a stroke.

More than three dozen speakers addressed the immense crowd that filled the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church — a modern, arena-style megachurch in a suburban Atlanta county that was once a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan but today has one of the most affluent black populations in the country.

President Bush ordered flags flown at half-staff across the country and saluted Coretta Scott King as "a woman who worked to make our nation whole."

"Coretta Scott King not only secured her husband's legacy, she built her own," Bush told the crowd. "Having loved a leader, she became a leader, and when she spoke, Americans listened closely."

Former President Clinton urged mourners to follow in her footsteps, honor her husband's sacrifice and help the couple's children fulfill their parents' legacy. Former President Bush said the "world is a kinder and gentler place because of Coretta Scott King." President Carter praised the Kings for their ability to "wage a fierce struggle for freedom and justice and to do it peacefully."

The funeral at times turned political, with some speakers decrying the war in Iraq, the Bush administration's eavesdropping program and the sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina in mostly black New Orleans.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr., drew a roaring standing ovation when he said: "For war, billions more, but no more for the poor" — a takeoff on a line from a Stevie Wonder song. The comment drew head shakes from Bush and his father as they sat behind the pulpit.

The large, lavish service stood in sharp contrast to the 1968 funeral for King's husband. President Johnson did not attend those services, which were held in the much smaller and older Ebenezer Church in Atlanta, where King had preached.