Coretta Scott King on Nonviolence

Janet Kinosian 2004 interview, HuffPost

[excerpt]

I don't know how it's going to happen, but I believe the nonviolent philosophy as lived out by MLK Jr. can become a reality because at this point with the spiral of violence I just don't see any other way out.

We didn't know how it was going to happen in the world at large. I can point to South Africa, where we really had no idea. They thought it was going to be a bloodbath. And there was one Nelson Mandela languishing in a South African prison for 27 years while the transformation was taking place. At the same time, we were concerned about the Soviet Union, and before our eyes it was dismantled. There are many other instances. There's the Berlin Wall. We were concerned about Marcos in the Philippines, and they disposed him without firing a shot.

I don't know what God's plan is, but I have to believe there's a plan, and we have to allow ourselves to be used as part of God's will and purpose, whatever and whoever is willing to do that. Maybe I'll live to see it, maybe I won't. But those of us who believe have to keep on believing and working.