Oprah salutes Coretta Scott King as a 'queen'

Feb 7, 2006, 13:21 GMT

Washington - Television talk show host Oprah Winfrey Monday saluted the late civil rights leader Coretta Scott King as a 'queen' whose dignified presence had a spiritual effect.

Oprah's remarks came on the first of two days in Atlanta, Georgia, commemorating the widow of martyred civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who died last week in the aftermath of a stroke in August and ovarian cancer.

King's body lay in state Saturday at the Georgia state Capitol in Atlanta - the first African American and the first woman to have been accorded the honour. Her remains were on view Monday at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her husband once preached and across the street from the King Centre. She was to be buried next to him at the center.

The funeral was to be held Tuesday at Atlanta's largest church, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, with a sanctuary that can hold 10,000 people.

US President George W. Bush changed plans to attend the service, and he will be accompanied by his wife, Laura, and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

'To me, she embodied royalty, she was a queen,' Oprah told mourners who had gathered across the street from the Ebenezer church. Her remarks were broadcast on CNN.

Oprah described King's 'beauty and power ... In her presence, you felt you were privy to a spiritual secret. You knew she was a force.' Another high profile African American, singer and actress Gladys Knight, famous for her 1968 recording of 'I heard it through the grapevine,' sang at the service.

Oprah drew laughter when she recounted an hour-and-a-half conversation with King that resulted from one question: How did she meet her husband?

'Her eyes lit up as she took me to the rainy afternoon of her first date, what she was wearing, a green scarf ... (Martin Luther King) was wearing a hat that looked too big for his head,' Oprah recalled from King's description. 'One hour and 28 minutes later, I understood why she still carried the torch for him.'

Martin Luther King Jr., the man who galvanized the push for racial equality and peaceful activism in the 1950s and 1960s, was assassinated in 1968 in Tennessee.