Reprinted by permission of Ray Abernathy. Ray's website is available at: http://www.rayabernathy.com
For several years after Dr. King was murdered, I worked pro bono as Mrs. King’s publicity coordinator, most harridly during this time of the year when we were trying to build the birthday celebration into a national event. Mrs. King — or Co-retta as we called her out of earshot — was a difficult boss, often remote and uncommunicative, aloof some said, maddeningly late for most appointments. But there were times when a quiet sense of humor crept through, and she had a bent for putting people in their place.
One year, Rev. Ike, aka Dr. Frederick Eikerenkoette, was in town for a stop on his revival tour and a request came saying he wanted to see Mrs. King. We found a place on the schedule, then scurried around straightening up the conference room in the downscale little suite of offices on the Atlanta University campus that served as headquarters for the Martin Luther King Center for Social Change. At the appointed time, the Great One and his entourage rolled up in two Bentleys (or were they Rolls?). We escorted them and several members of the press inside, where some sat in metal folding chairs and others paced. Twenty minutes went by, then thirty. No Coretta. Forty-five. An hour. I excused myself and scurried back to her office, where I found her with her feet up, filing her nails intently. “Mrs. King,” I said, “Rev. Ike has been waiting an hour and he’s beginning to get a little irriated.” “Ray,” she replied, dragging my name out into three syllables, “The Good Lord knows I’m doing the best I can, and I suspect he knows even a heathen like you is doing the best you can. Besides, good things come only to those who wait.”
Another day that year, I scored an interview with a major reporter, and thought it quite a coup. I was prepping Mrs. King when she called in an aide and requested he fetch her two helpings of pickled pig’s feet and jello for her in-office lunch with the reporter. I protested, “You usually have a club sandwich and a Coke for lunch, and I doubt this whitebread reporter is going to have much of a taste for pig’s feet.” She brushed me off with the comment that you have to deal with the media on your ground, not theirs. In the middle of the interview, as she sucked her fingers between bites and the reporter gamely tried to do the same, she glanced across her desk at me sitting in a far corner of the room and gave me an almost imperceptible wink. I knew right then we were going to get a good story the next day. And we did.