A program of the Gandhi-King Center
“I was a Scott before I was a King.”
Coretta Scott King
The Program
Coretta Scott was a concert-trained musician at the New England Conservatory, an Antioch College graduate, and an active organizer in civil rights and anti-nuclear campaigns years before she married Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After his assassination she carried her own work forward for nearly forty more years: founding The King Center in Atlanta, advocating for LGBTQ rights, opposing apartheid, and shaping the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday into being.
She insisted, throughout, on being seen for the whole of who she was. The program takes its name from a line she returned to often: "I was a Scott before I was a King."
Scott Before King is the Gandhi-King Center's women's empowerment program. It centers Coretta's full identity, work, and voice, and it supports women navigating their own identity inside high-visibility family, professional, or civic contexts, work that belongs to them, not to who they married or to whose story has been told around them.
Program leadership
Executive Director of the Gandhi-King Center and cousin through marriage to Coretta Scott King. Twenty-eight years inside the public school system supporting children and families, with additional work as a suicide crisis counselor. Her career has been a long lesson in what it costs people when systems fail them, and what it takes to hold the door open anyway.
"Everyone has the potential to succeed regardless of their background."
Vice Chair of the Gandhi-King Center and cousin to Coretta Scott King. A career social worker who has spent his working life inside the agencies that exist for the people other agencies stopped seeing. He brings the Coretta-side blood lineage and a practitioner's understanding of how the everyday work of justice gets done.
"Everyone has the potential to be a peacemaker, regardless of their background."
A third co-lead from the Foster family's next generation will be named here when she's ready.
How to engage
Scott Before King launched in 2026 under the leadership of Carolyn and Gregory Foster. Specific programming, partnership opportunities, and event schedule will appear here as the program develops.
If you would like to participate, partner, mentor, be mentored, or contribute to Scott Before King specifically:
Contact the program Donate to Scott Before King
When using the donate page, please include “Scott Before King” in the optional comment field so your gift is earmarked for this program.