“Coretta had all the faith,” said Coretta Scott King’s first cousin, Mary Scott Hicks.</p><p>Mary saw that faith tested time and time again, even before Coretta married Martin Luther King Jr., in 1953. The girls grew up together in the small town of Marion, Ala., in the 1930s and 40s.</p><p>Mary was two years younger than Coretta — born in 1929, but Mary said she was always the one who told Coretta about what the adults were talking about. </p><p>“My mother would tell me about the Klan and all the bad things happening,” Mary said. “Coretta’s mother just kept her reading.”</p><p>So when Coretta and Mary were at school one day — the county school allowed black and white children to go together, although their play area was separated by a fence — and Coretta saw a young white boy sitting by himself, she went over to talk to him.</p><p>But when she reached him at the fence, he spit on her. </p><p>“She ran around that fence so fast, and whipped him good and then ran back around,” Mary said with a twinkle in her eye. Even today, almost 70 years after the incident, it was easy to see Mary was proud of her usually reserved cousin.</p><p>Coretta and Mary had no idea what repercussions would come of that seemingly courageous schoolyard act. Later that day, Coretta had lingered in the pastures on her way home. Her mother and father were worried about her, as it was starting to get late. </p><p>“I said, ‘Miss Bernice, Coretta will be alright she’s not afraid of anything,’” Mary said. “She scratched that boy up good.”</p><p>But Obie Scott, Coretta’s father and Mary’s uncle, knew something the young girls did not. </p><p>Earlier that day Obie overheard a man in town say, “That little Negro girl who scratched my son up will never again see the light of day.”</p><p>So Mary was sent up to the pasture to find her cousin. </p><p>“I found her tied up underneath a tree,” Mary said, shuddering as she recounted the scene. “Not far away were nooses tied to another tree branch. When I bent down to check on her, they caught me too.”</p><p>Mary said the men had run out of rope and tied her up with their own shoelaces. </p><p>“Coretta had her mouth taped up, so I took it off for her,” Mary said. “When I did, she said, ‘Now Mary, don’t yell, things will be alright. Someone is going to come find us.</p><p>“She said, ‘Mary something tells me everything is going to be all right,” Mary said. “But I didn’t believe her. I said, ‘Well something hasn’t told me nothin’!’”</p><p>That faith her older cousin had, Mary said, calmed her down and soon enough Obie came creeping up with his shotgun.</p><p>“He walked right up on them and fired shots in the air,” Mary said. “One shot up and they ran. We never heard from them again.”</p><p>But that was certainly not the last hardship for the Scott cousins and their families. </p><p>One evening a few white men came to Mary’s house and summoned her stepfather to “help them” that evening. </p><p>He didn’t come home. </p><p>A few days later, Mary’s family received a tip from another white man about where they might find their stepfather. </p><p>“We found him strapped to a tree with bullet holes in him,” Mary said. </p><p>Another time, Mary and her brother had concocted a plan to “get the men” who beat up Coretta’s father by burning down their house. </p><p>Mary said Obie would tell Coretta’s mother, Bernice, everyday that he wasn’t sure if he would come back or not.</p><p>“That’s the fear we lived in,” Mary said. </p><p>The ever-feisty Mary persuaded her first cousin to tag along on the adventure to burn down the house of the men who beat up Obie. </p><p>“My brother put the oil down, I had the matches, and I told Coretta to bring the fuses,” Mary said. </p><p>But Coretta didn’t bring them — saying she forgot, but knowing in her heart that what they were about to do was not the right thing.</p><p>“Coretta had all the faith. I had none,” Mary said. “Her mother taught her to not do evil for evil and she knew it was wrong.”</p><p>Mary recounted several incidents – each in itself something no one should have to endure. </p><p>But for Mary and her cousin, those recurring incidents were commonplace in rural Alabama and across the south.</p><p>“I witnessed history,” Mary said. “I lived it.” </p><p>A few years later, Mary’s mother found a burning cross in their yard with a note demanding her family leave before sundown — all because she tried to take a spoiled chicken back to the butcher shop. Mary and her family immediately moved from Marion to Sylacaugua, Ala.</p><p>From there, Coretta and Mary went their separate ways. Mary moved to Dayton, Ohio and Coretta met and married Martin Luther King Jr. and began something Mary never foresaw as a child growing up in Marion, Ala.</p><p>“I can hardly imagine it now,” Mary said of her cousin’s mark on the Civil Rights movement.</p><p>But the cousins never forgot the bond they forged. When King was put in jail, Coretta called Mary to help get him out. And when Mary saw Coretta still living in a dangerous Atlanta neighborhood after King’s death, Mary made an important phone call to persuade her to move. </p><p>Years after Coretta’s death, Mary still proudly displays pictures of her first cousin in her home at John Knox Village in Lee’s Summit — she decided to retire there last May.</p><p>“She was born for that job,” Mary said of Coretta’s role in the Civil Rights movement. </p><p>Mary said she will never forget the lessons of faith her cousin taught her, as she still lives those lessons each day. </p><p>“At 81, I’m enjoying my life and using those lessons I was taught,” Mary said with perhaps the same feisty smile that she gave Coretta those many years ago. </p><p><i>To reach Journal reporter Miranda Wycoff, call 816-282-7017, or e-mail mwycoff@lsjournal.com.</i>