CSK

I was asked late in the day Friday to go and do some audio recording of ambeint sounds for the transfer of Coretta Scott King’s body to the state capitol this morning. She will lie there in state until Monday. The burial is on Tuesday. I have teared up a few times since her death this past Tuesday. The King legacy is one of the things that makes me happy to live in this city, I love driving past the MLK artwork at the corner of Boulevard and Freedom, even though it is not the best example of public art. Today I woke up later than I should have, expeceted to go to the Old Fourth Ward to the funeral home, which turned out to be on the West End, so I headed to the capitol and waited and waited and watched people and recording helicopters and people talking and leaves and finally the motorbikes and horses and then she came along. I almost lost it right then, but kept my journalistic distance and integrity together long enough to join the masses on the capitol lawn, and still kept it together, until the bagpiper played ‘Amazing Grace’ and my eyes moistened, and then her body was taken in and the people spntaneously started into ‘We Shall Overcome’ and I sang and burst and had to walk away.
Here’s the product of the day, the recorder stopped working before the bagpipes and singing, I guess it will be just a memory, with no evidence, for me now.
Coretta Scott King: Lying In State
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