Dorothy Cotton, one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest confidants, from 1966 until his assassination, describes him as a natural born preacher. She talks about being on the road with Dr. King, his leadership, his love of singing, and the need to change the way we interpret violence and nonviolence. This was Cotton’s final interview. She passed away on June 10, 2018.
Dorothy Cotton was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 1930, Cotton attended Shaw University in Raleigh and Virginia State College in Petersburg, Virginia earning a degree in English and library science. Later, she earned her master’s degree in speech therapy from Boston University. While in Petersburg she worked as a secretary for the Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker and helped to organize protests against segregated libraries and lunch counters in the late 1950s. When Dr. King appointed Reverend Walker as the executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1960, Cotton joined him in Atlanta and quickly rose in the ranks becoming the most senior women in the SCLC. In 1970 she left the SCLC to hold multiple leadership positions in educational organizations such as Head Start. In 1982 Cotton became director of student activities at Cornell University and upon her retirement in 1991 established the Dorothy Cotton Institute to advance global human rights.
From the HBO / Kunhardt Film Foundation (KFF) Documentary “King in the Wilderness” that follows Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the last years of his life: from the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to his assassination in 1968, through personal stories of the people who were around him.
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Dorothy Cotton, Education Director, SCLC
Interviewed By: Trey Ellis
Interview Date: May 5, 2017
Chapters:
00:00 Meeting Dr. King
03:18 Dr. King the Preacher
05:57 On The Road with Dr. King
10:15 Stokely Carmichael
12:19 Nonviolence
12:58 Women In The Movement
13:58 Dr. King’s Leadership Style
15:54 Vietnam and The Riverside Speech
17:27 A Singing Movement
20:04 If Dr. King Had Lived
21:10 Message To Younger Generation
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