VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS)-"The death of Coretta Scott King has saddened us all at The Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board," said Dr. Sumner M. Grant, MMBB's executive director. Reflecting on Mrs. King's 37-year MMBB membership as beneficiary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s retirement and death benefit plans, Dr. Grant noted, "She was one of our own."
Mrs. King's death on January 31, 2006, marks the end of an era for MMBB. In 1962, the late Dean R. Wright, then MMBB executive director, began to lead MMBB's Board of Managers into active engagement in the Civil Rights Movement. Martin England, an administrator in MMBB's New York office and a native South Carolinian, was dispatched to the South to open up a regional office. His primary responsibility was to support and encourage pastors who had been displaced over their involvement in the Movement.
Dr. Wright also urged England to enroll Dr. King in MMBB's retirement and death benefit plans. But it was hard for England, a white Southerner, to get past Dr. King's lieutenants. Through dogged persistence, however, and just two days after the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., England got Dr. King's signature on the application which would make all the difference for the King family.
Following Dr. King's assassination in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, MMBB reached out and ministered to the King family in the same way it has for so many others since its founding in 1911. A death benefit check was immediately issued to Mrs. King, and she began receiving a monthly spouse's annuity, which continued until her death. She also received monthly child allowances until each of her four children reached the age of 21. And, as they prepared for college, MMBB made educational allowances available to them.
Three years ago Dr. Grant was privileged to meet Mrs. King at Franklin College in Franklin, Ind. She said to him, "I know who you are. Thank you for all the support I have received across the years."
"We celebrate Coretta Scott King's life and witness," Dr. Grant said in tribute, "grateful that MMBB could provide financial stability for her and her children in those days of grief and uncertainty. Though an era has ended, the fulfillment of the ideals and principles for which she so courageously struggled have not. With new resolve, we dedicate ourselves to the cause of equality and justice."
Matthew Brown Webmaster Office of the General Secretary American Baptist Churches USA 610-768-2159 Phone 610.768.2309 Fax www.abcusamissions.org