Alberta Williams King

Alberta Christine Williams King ( Williams; September 13, 1904 – June 30, 1974) was an American civil rights organizer best known as the wife of Martin Luther King Sr.; and as the mother of Martin Luther King Jr., and also as the grandmother of Martin Luther King III. She was the choir director of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. She was shot and killed in the church by 23-year-old Marcus Wayne Chenault six years after the assassination of her eldest son Martin Luther King Jr. The King family lived in the home until King's mother's death from a heart attack in 1941, when Martin Jr. turned 12 years old. The house the family moved to was located nearby. It has since been torn down. Michael King, Jr., followed on January 15, 1929, then Alfred Daniel Williams King, named after his grandfather, on July 30, 1930. About this time, Michael King changed his name to Martin Luther King Sr.

Alberta King worked hard to instill self-respect into her children. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote an essay while he studied at Crozer Seminary stating that she "was behind the scenes setting forth those motherly cares, the lack of which leaves a missing link in life."

During this period King continued her studies at Morris Brown College, receiving a BA in 1938.

Career King founded the Ebenezer choir and served as church organist from 1932 to 1972. She served as choir director for nearly 25 years, leaving for only a brief period in the early 1960s to accompany her son and assist him with his work.

Murder and aftermath Alberta King was shot and killed on June 30, 1974, age 69, by Marcus Wayne Chenault, a 23-year-old man from Ohio. Chenault's mentor, Hananiah E. Israel, a Black Hebrew Israelite preacher who rejected the New Testament, castigated Black civil rights activists and church leaders as being evil and deceptive, but claimed in interviews not to have advocated violence.

Chenault first decided to assassinate Rev. Jesse Jackson in Chicago, but cancelled the plan at the last minute.

Chenault said that he shot King because "all Christians are my enemies," and claimed that he had decided that Black ministers were a menace to Black people.

King and Boykin were rushed to the nearby Grady Memorial Hospital. King died shortly afterward from a gunshot wound to the right side of her head. Martin Luther King Sr. died of a heart attack on November 11, 1984, and was interred next to her.