For Coretta, finding her direction

Whether they knew him personally or solely by his legacy, people here who speak of Martin Luther King Jr.'s life in Boston always speak of his wife, Coretta Scott.

"If Martin hadn't come to Boston, he would have never met her," said John Cartwright, the Martin Luther King Jr. professor emeritus of social ethics at Boston University. "If he hadn't met someone of her character, of her intelligence, he might never have led the life he did."

But while many feel that union was Boston's greatest contribution to King, no one could seem to agree as to how the couple met.

When the Globe contacted Coretta Scott King by phone in Atlanta last week to solve the mystery, she laughed at the confusion.

"The truth is, Martin and I met on the telephone," she said, recalling the day in 1951 when she was a student at the New England Conservatory of Music and King called her at the urging of her classmate. "We were introduced by . . . a classmate of mine at school. I had already heard about him through her, though when she said `minister' I wasn't interested."

Luckily, Coretta warmed to other things the classmate, Mary Powell, told her about King. Powell knew the King family from Atlanta and also was a part-time secretary at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, where King often preached. She told Coretta stories about his family, his background, his promising career. After talking on the phone, King and Scott agreed to meet at Sharaf's restaurant on Massachusetts Avenue.

"Before he hung up the phone, he said, `I'm coming from Boston University. I usually make it in 10 minutes, but tomorrow, I'll make it in 7.' He was trying to impress me, you know," Coretta said.

Although Martin was smitten from the start, she was more hesitant.

"On our first date, he deliberately asked a question that had to do with capitalism versus communism, or something to that effect, to get a sense of what I might say," she said. "I remember I made an intelligent comment, and he said, `oh, I see you know something other than music.' I thought, of course I did. I was a graduate of Antioch College," she chuckled. "I had thoughts of my own.

"At the end of that first date, he said, `You know, you have everything I ever wanted in a wife. There are only four things, and you have them all - intelligence, character, beauty, and personality. When can I see you again?' I said I really didn't know because I had a tight schedule."

As a first-year student at the conservatory, Coretta had envisioned several years in school and a career as a singer after graduation. Marriage was not on the horizon.

"Martin wanted to get married before he went into the pastory. At that time, we knew nothing about what was going to happen in our future, but he said, `I know what kind of life I want to lead, and I know what kind of wife I'm looking for.' He was always trying to convince me I was it."

A year and four months later, in June of 1953, the Kings were married in Marion, Ala., by Martin's father, before moving back to Boston to finish school.

"I kept struggling with my own ambitions for a long time before that," said Coretta. "I knew that getting married would lead me away from performing and the direction I'd hoped to go. But when I finally opened myself to the relationship, I knew this was my direction."