Alberta Williams King, affectionately known as “Mama King,” was a devoted African-American church organist, educator, and the nurturing matriarch of one of the 20th century’s most influential families. Born Alberta Christine Williams on September 13, 1903, in Atlanta, Georgia, she grew up in a household steeped in faith and community leadership, as the only daughter of Reverend Adam Daniel Williams, a charismatic pastor who led Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church from 1914 until he died in 1931. Her father, a vocal advocate for civil rights and economic justice, instilled in her a profound sense of purpose and resilience, shaping her worldview amid the harsh realities of Jim Crow segregation in the South. Alberta herself pursued education with determination, attending Atlanta’s prestigious Spelman Seminary (now Spelman College) for her early studies, followed by further training at Teachers College and Atlanta University, where she honed skills that would serve her lifelong commitment to teaching and music.
In 1926, at the age of 22, Alberta married Martin Luther King Sr.—often called “Daddy King”—a rising young Baptist preacher born in 1899 in Stockbridge, Georgia, who had already pastored two modest churches in Atlanta while pursuing studies at Morehouse College. The couple’s union blended their shared devotion to the church and social uplift, and they settled into the Williams family home in Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn neighborhood, a vibrant Black enclave known as the “richest Negro street in the world.” There, amid the warmth of her parents’ Victorian home, Alberta supported her husband’s ambitions as he completed his education and joined her father as an assistant pastor at Ebenezer. When Reverend Williams passed away in 1931, Martin Sr. seamlessly assumed the senior pastorate, transforming the church into a powerhouse of activism and growing its membership from a few hundred to over 4,000. Under his steady leadership, the Kings built a stable, middle-class life, with Alberta serving as the quiet yet essential anchor—managing the household, teaching Sunday school, and playing the organ for services, a role she cherished for more than four decades.
The marriage bore three children who would carry forward the family’s legacy of courage and conviction: daughter Willie Christine King, born in 1927 and later an educator and civil rights supporter; son Martin Luther King Jr., born on January 15, 1929, who would become the iconic leader of the Civil Rights Movement, wielding nonviolent civil disobedience to dismantle legal segregation and inspire global change until his assassination in 1968; and youngest son Alfred Daniel Williams King, born in 1930, a minister and activist who tragically drowned in 1969 under mysterious circumstances. Alberta’s home was a sanctuary of love and moral instruction, where she and Martin Sr. fostered an extended family network that emphasized dignity in the face of oppression. They taught their children to navigate segregation’s cruel boundaries without letting it erode their self-worth—lessons drawn from Alberta’s own experiences of quiet defiance, like her insistence on equal treatment during her teaching days at Atlanta’s Booker T. Washington High School.
For young Martin Jr., these parental influences were transformative. As a child, he reveled in interracial playdates in their integrated neighborhood, only to face the sting of separation when school age arrived and white parents enforced racial lines. Heartbroken and bewildered, the boy turned to his mother for solace. Alberta, with her gentle wisdom, offered not just comfort but a concise, unflinching history of Black America’s struggles—from enslavement to emancipation and the ongoing fight for equality. “You must never feel that you are less than anybody else,” she told him firmly. “You must always feel that you are somebody.” These words, rooted in her faith and unyielding optimism, echoed through her son’s sermons and strategies, helping him transcend the “bonds of segregation” while rejecting the poison of internalized racism. Alberta’s role extended beyond the home; she was a pillar at Ebenezer, her organ music weaving through worship services like a thread of hope, and she quietly supported her husband’s civil rights efforts, including his early involvement in the NAACP.
The family’s world was shattered on April 4, 1968, when Martin Jr. was gunned down at age 38 on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, a victim of racial hatred that cut short his dream of a beloved community. Alberta, then 64, endured unimaginable grief, yet she channeled it into resolve. She stepped more prominently into public life, comforting mourners at Ebenezer, advocating for her son’s vision, and even testifying before Congress on gun control in the wake of his death. Her faith sustained her as she continued playing the organ and guiding the church through its sorrow, embodying the quiet strength that had always defined her.
Tragedy struck again on June 30, 1974, six years after her eldest son’s murder, during a sweltering Sunday morning service at Ebenezer. At 69, Alberta was seated at the church’s gleaming new organ, her fingers gracefully rendering “The Lord’s Prayer” for the 400 congregants packed into the pews. Suddenly, Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr., a 23-year-old drifter from Dayton, Ohio, who had slipped in unnoticed and been warmly greeted by worshippers, rose from the front row. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia but unmedicated, Chenault—driven by a fringe ideology that branded Black Christian leaders as puppets of white oppression—drew two pistols and opened fire in a hail of bullets. Alberta was struck in the head and slumped over the console, her music silenced forever. Beside her, 69-year-old church deacon Edward L. Boykin, a beloved elder, was fatally wounded in the chest as he shielded others. In the chaos, nine others were injured, but Chenault’s rampage ended quickly when congregants, including a barber named Luther Pierce, tackled him.
Interrogated by police, Chenault chillingly confessed that his “mission from God” was to assassinate Martin Luther King Sr., whom he saw as the embodiment of a corrupt “Black establishment” undermining true Black liberation. Spotting the elder King in the choir, he fired at Alberta instead because she was nearer, later boasting, “I shot her because she was in the way.” His hatred of Christianity, which he deemed a tool of white control, had festered for months; he had traveled to Atlanta specifically to target Ebenezer’s pastors, deluded by voices and visions that convinced him Black ministers were the enemy of their people. The city reeled in horror, with Martin Sr. weeping openly at the scene, declaring, “It’s too much. I can’t take it anymore.”
Chenault’s trial in Fulton County was swift and damning. Convicted of two counts of murder in December 1974, he was sentenced to death, a verdict upheld on appeal. Yet, in a profound act of mercy reflecting the King family’s core principles, Alberta’s widower and children—led by Martin Luther King III and Coretta Scott King—lobbied vigorously against capital punishment, citing doubts about Chenault’s sanity and their commitment to nonviolence even toward killers. In 1977, Georgia’s governor commuted his sentence to three consecutive life terms without parole, a decision that spared the state further moral compromise while honoring Alberta’s legacy of grace under fire. Chenault died in prison in 1995 from a stroke, but the scars of that day lingered, underscoring the relentless violence that shadowed the King dynasty.
Alberta Williams King’s life, though ended too soon, rippled outward like the notes of her organ—fostering a son who changed history, nurturing a family that withstood unimaginable loss, and reminding generations that faith, education, and unbowed self-respect are the truest weapons against injustice. In her quiet way, she was as much an architect of the Civil Rights Movement as any march or speech, her story a testament to the unsung women who built its foundation.