DeKalb County Schools closed tomorrow
According to the website
The Memorial Services for Mrs. Coretta Scott King will be held on February 7, 2006 in DeKalb County at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Out of respect for the memory and legacy of Mrs. King, all schools and administrative offices of the DeKalb County School System will be closed on Tuesday, February 7, 2006.
My guess is that the school system realized that there were going to be a huge number of teachers and staff taking personal days to attend or participate in the funeral. Also, the huge number of dignitaries (the last 4 Presidents, prominent nationa figures, etc.) descending on Lithonia makes it best not to have school buses getting in the way.
Fulton County schools are open tomorrow. However, “[d]ocumented absences due to the funeral will be excused.”
Mrs. King: Not a bad person, but not the honorable Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. either.
Coretta Scott King Scandals
From the LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-013106king_lat,1,1024697.story?page=4&cset=true&ctrack=1
The King Center has been attacked over the years for a lack of activism, and it struggled financially. In the 1990s it began to run large deficits, and by 2005 it needed $11.6 million in repairs. The future of the center became the subject of an ugly family squabble, with Dexter and Yolanda pushing to sell the institution to the National Park Service over the objections of Martin III and Bernice. Several years earlier the King family had tried to block a National Park Service proposal to open its own exhibit on Rev. King, arguing that it would detract from the family-run center across the street. The Kings and
the Park Service eventually resolved their differences, but the dispute tarnished Coretta King’s image.
Other controversies — such as selling the rights to her husband’s “I Have a Dream” speech for use in cell phone commercials while limiting access to his papers by serious scholars and journalists- only sharpened the criticism that King and her family were putting personal profit before public interest. The King estate forced USA Today to pay $1,700 plus legal fees after the newspaper published the text of Rev. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. It also sued CBS for selling a video documentary that made extensive use of the network’s own film of King and the march on Washington. After the success of Henry Hampton’s widely praised PBS series on the civil rights movement, “Eyes on the Prize,” the estate made similar claims that film of King had been used illegally and demanded a licensing fee. The latter dispute was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. After a deal to sell King’s papers to the Library of Congress for $20 million fell through, the King estate arranged with Sotheby’s auction house to sell the archives privately, but no satisfactory buyers have been found. Meanwhile, the estate was expected to earn as much as $10 million from a 1997 deal with TimeWarner to release his speeches and writings in various media, including audio and CD-ROMs.
A self-professed workaholic who often called staff members late at night, Coretta King never took a salary from the center but supported herself through speaking fees and royalties from her autobiography and her late husband’s writings.
Not to take away from the memory of the Kings, but this was a inconvenience as a parent. They certainly could’ve closed schools around the area and excused those going in Dekalb. We’ve already had enough unplanned days off as it is. And we have yet to get our 1″ dusting of snow that will shut down the ciy.