Coretta Scott King Collection

Seven years after Keuka College bestowed an honorary degree on Civil Rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it likewise honored another leader of the movement.
Coretta Scott King was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters degree at the College’s 1970 Commencement. Citing the 1963 visit by the Kings at which her husband received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree, College President Dr. G. Wayne Glick hailed Coretta Scott King’s return as a “visit again by goodness and greatness.” Her visit came just two years after the assassination of her husband.
Referencing the challenges of the day, which remain all too familiar, Mrs. King spoke of “the insidious evils of repression, poverty, war, racism, pollution, and social injustice,” and called for “a new concept of womanhood.” “The salvation of mankind,” she told the all-female class of graduates, “rests with capable women.”