There is a saying that behind every great man is a woman.
Martin Luther King Jr., was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. He had controversies tied to his name and his style of fighting for equality, while effective in the eyes of many, was criticized even by those within his circle. But as one of the most prominent figures of the civil rights movement and as a champion of nonviolent resistance that successfully toppled discriminatory policies in America, he is considered by many to be great. And there were many women behind him.
Would he have succeeded without them? Any answer to this would be pure speculation. What’s certain is that people of color in American are far better off now than they were before and it’s partly because of the man that King became.
That man would not have been the same without the women who stood by him.
Coretta Scott King

There is an old saying that “violence begets violence” but that isn’t always the case for women like Coretta Scott King.
During her teen years, her family’s home in Alabama was burned down by racists. Long into her marriage with King, their home was bombed while she and her daughter were inside. And, more than a decade later, her husband was killed as he was pursuing a campaign to win freedoms for Black people in America.
But even after all of that, Scott King remained a champion of nonviolent social change much like her husband was.
On the same year that King was assassinated, she founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change which provides research, education and training programs on the principles, philosophy and methods of non-violence. In the following years, she continued the life of an activist—stepping in for her late husband to fight for various causes in the name of equality and peace. She confronted many issues: from threats of war, to the injustices faced by women and even queer people. And while she has raised her fist at many of these, she never advocated throwing hands.
She wanted to guard her husband’s legacy. And because of that she secured her own.
Mahalia Jackson

“I Have a Dream” is one of the greatest speeches that King gave to fuel the civil rights movement—and it allegedly almost didn’t happen.
During the March on Washington, when proponents of civil rights showed up to call for racial equality and freedom, King stood before the crowd with a prepared statement. Before he could finish it though, Mahalia Jackson—one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century and an old friend of King—prompted him to say something else.
“Tell them about the dream, Martin,” Jackson yelled.
King then looked at her, put his notes aside and gave one of the most memorable, improvised public speeches of his time.
The gospel singer and the minister—the duo that has shaped many Black lives.
King and Jackson met at the 1956 National Baptist Convention in Alabama and have since been good friends with Jackson providing guidance and support to King.
But Jackson was more than that. A vocalist whose career spanned four decades, Jackson was one of the best-selling gospel music artists of her time. America had a massive race problem when she was rising into popularity and she was the granddaughter of enslaved people who grew up poor in New Orleans. Yet this did not stop her from selling 22 million records and performing in front of various people around the world. She was black and successful at a time when it was difficult to be both—and that in itself was a protest.
Marian Wright Edelman

King may have died in 1968 but his dream of equality didn’t die with him—especially since he was surrounded by many people who had the means and the passion to keep it alive.
Among them was Marian Wright Edelman.
As the first Black woman admitted to the Mississippi State Bar, Edelman had the makings of someone capable of providing great service to the people. And she did. She worked as a civil rights attorney with the Legal Defense Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she provided guidance to King and stood by him as he began to incorporate the war against poverty into his quest for civil rights.
After he passed away, Edelman continued to work on his Poor People’s Campaign. She founded the Children’s Defense Fund that actively advocates for children across America—they who may carry the burden of keeping King’s dream alive the way people like Edelman did after he was gone.
Diane Nash

The fight for civil rights in America picked up when Rosa Parks chose not to give up her seat in a bus to a white passenger.
It was a defiant, confident but nonviolent act of protest that was mirrored by many during King’s time.
Among those who did so was Diane Nash.
Even at a young age, Nash had a strong commitment to equality expressed by her involvement with sit-ins—a method of protest wherein people occupy a public space until their demands are met. She organized her first one in Tennessee in 1960, targeting six lunch counters. Since then, she became one of the most respected leaders of the sit-in movement in Nashville.
Her efforts led to the first successful civil rights campaign to desegregate lunch counters. She also helped in founding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee which became quite influential during the civil rights movement. She also came to be known for her leadership in the Freedom Rides, a campaign to desegregate interstate travel.
In support of this organization, she managed to bring King to Montgomery Alabama on May 21, 1961. She also got involved in the 1963 Birmingham desegregation campaign and the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Campaign.
On July 2022, Nash was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for all of her efforts and no less than the United States President Joe Biden stood for her.
Odetta

Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez and Mavis Staples are some of the biggest names in American music and they were all influenced by one woman: Odetta.
Born on December 31, 1930 in Birmingham, Alabama, Odetta was dubbed by King as the “Queen of American Folk Music.” But others know her by another title: “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement,” a title she earned not just by performing at civil rights marches but also by tackling folk songs in ways that resonated with those who longed for change.
In many of her songs, Odetta tapped into her deep, full voice to convey the mourning and the hunger of Black people in America. Towards the end of her years, even when wheeled from one venue to the nextr, she still had the presence of a high priestess conveying her gospel through music.
Towards the end of her life, Odetta longed to sing at the inauguration of the first Black president of the United States. Her life ended before that could happen but her music and her legacy lives on through those inspired by her time on this world.
Ella Baker

Ella Baker and King essentially wanted the same thing but they differed in the ways by which they sought it out.
King favored a more top-down leadership style while Baker believed in grassroots organizing and group-centered leadership. Baker was also a seasoned activist while, according to various publications, King—despite his progressive beliefs—still struggled in letting women take the lead. Baker believed that the movement’s success depended on people being empowered enough to not need a savior-type leader—which King was shaping up to be.
Still, she was one of the most formidable proponents of the cause which made him.
A behind-the-scenes organizer for more than five decades, Baker worked with and trained many civil rights activists. She also traveled from one small town to the next to convince Black people to join their nonviolent protests. Some of her most significant contributions happened when she was both advisor and strategist of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She also co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which King led.
In “I Have a Dream,” King listed his aspirations. Baker also had dreams and as a champion of self-determination and a critic of both racism and the sexism prevalent even among those who fought against the former—her list was vast; it even included some items not mentioned in King’s list.
Alberta Williams King

King tapped both music and faith to further the civil rights movement and his respect for both was partly because of his mother, Alberta Williams King.
A choir director at the Ebenezer Baptist Church where King eventually became a pastor, the “soft-spoken” and “easy-going” Williams King was a woman who was committed to her faith community. She was crucial to shaping the way King saw the world.
In an interview with 11Alive, King’s son, Martin Luthor King III, confirmed this. “Her greatest task,” he shared, “was developing her own children.” And she did. But it wasn’t just music and faith that she taught them. According to the King Institute, she worked to instill in them a sense of self-respect.
She too was an activist, a proponent of social justice. Aside from raising her kids, she worked with the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
She had a relatively comfortable life which King himself acknowledged. But she still lived in a time when Black people suffered oppression. She was never complacent with a segregated America and her son grew up to be the same.
[They] had dreams

King had dreams. He shared them in the iconic speech which furthered his legacy as one of the most crucial voices of the civil rights movement.
But he wasn’t the only one who had those dreams. All the successes of the civil rights movement happened because they were also the aspirations of others. These include the women who stood beside him despite the challenge of being black and not being a man.
They too made sacrifices; they too hurt and they too should not be forgotten as the world looks at itself to see how many of King’s dreams came true.