Alberta Christine Williams King was the mother of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the wife of the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., and a major figure in the religious, family, and community life of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. Dr. King often acknowledged his mother’s formative influence, describing her to classmates as “the best mother in the world.” Her work as a church musician, organizer, educator, and parent helped shape the household and institution from which her son emerged. She was murdered at Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1974, six years after Dr. King’s assassination.
Alberta Christine Williams was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on 13 September 1904, the only child of Jennie Celeste Parks Williams and the Rev Adam Daniel Williams, the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. She attended Spelman Seminary for high school and received a teaching certificate from the Hampton Normal and Industrial Institute—now Hampton University—in 1924. She later continued her education at Morris Brown College, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1938.
Before leaving for Hampton, Alberta met Michael King, later known as Martin Luther King Sr., whose sister, Woodie, was boarding with the Williams family. After completing her studies, Alberta announced their engagement at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Because the Atlanta school system did not permit married women to teach, she worked as a teacher only briefly before their marriage on Thanksgiving Day, 25 November 1926.
After their wedding, Alberta and Michael King lived in an upstairs bedroom in the Williams family home on Auburn Avenue. Their three children were born in Atlanta: Willie Christine King on 11 September 1927; Michael King Jr., later Martin Luther King Jr., on 15 January 1929; and Alfred Daniel Williams King, known as A. D. King, on 30 July 1930.
After the death of A. D. Williams in 1931, Michael King succeeded his father-in-law as pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. He began using the name Martin Luther King after a 1934 trip to Germany. Alberta King became a central presence in Ebenezer’s life. She founded the church choir and served as an organist there from 1932 to 1972. She was also organist for the Women’s Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention from 1950 to 1962, and participated in the YWCA, the NAACP, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Her church work was publicly recognised in 1972, when she was honoured for her years as Ebenezer’s organist and director.
As a mother, Alberta King sought to instil self-respect, religious faith, and a sense of dignity in her children despite the daily realities of segregation. Martin Luther King Jr. later remembered his childhood as one spent “in a very congenial home situation,” with parents who “always lived together very intimately.” He remained close to his mother as an adult. In letters written while working on a Connecticut tobacco farm as a high-school student, he asked her to send fried chicken and rolls; while studying at Crozer Theological Seminary, he wrote to her with the familiar intimacy of a son who trusted her with the details of his life. In an essay, he described her as being “behind the scene setting forth those motherly cares, the lack of which leaves a missing link in life.”
Although Alberta King generally avoided the public attention surrounding her son’s international leadership, she remained a source of steadiness for the family. After Dr King was assassinated in Memphis on 4 April 1968, the family endured another devastating loss when A. D. King died by drowning in the swimming pool at his home on 21 July 1969, nine days before his thirty-ninth birthday. His death was officially ruled accidental, although some members of the family later questioned that conclusion.
On Sunday morning, 30 June 1974, Alberta Williams King was playing the organ at Ebenezer Baptist Church when Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr., 23, opened fire during the service. King was fatally wounded, and Edward Boykin, a church deacon, was also killed; another congregant was wounded. King was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where she died shortly afterward. She was 69.
Chenault later said that he acted out of hostility towards Christianity and Black ministers. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. His death sentence was eventually changed to life imprisonment; the King family’s principled opposition to capital punishment formed important context in the long history of the case. Chenault suffered a stroke on 3 August 1995, never regained consciousness, and died in hospital on 19 August 1995, aged 44.
Alberta Williams King was buried at South-View Cemetery in Atlanta. Her husband, Martin Luther King Sr., died of a heart attack on 11 November 1984 and was buried beside her.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_Williams_King
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/martin-luther-kings-mother-slain-in-church-1974
http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_king_alberta_williams_1903_1974/
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-alberta-williams
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-alfred-daniel-williams
https://crdl.usg.edu/people/king_alberta_williams_1903_1974
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/22/obituaries/m-w-chenault-44-gunman-who-killed-mother-of-dr-king.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/13/archives/chenault-sentenced-to-die-nov-8-in-church-murder-of-mrs-king.html
