<p>In a poetic tribute to their parents, the children of the Rev. Martin Luther King. Jr. and Coretta Scott King announced Monday that "the peacemaker and the peacekeeper are together again."</p><p>After nearly 40 years apart, the two icons of the civil rights movement now lie side by side in a single tomb which was dedicated by the King family as their friends and passers-by looked on.</p><p>"It is altogether fitting that Martin and Coretta are here in this place ... just as their spirits are together for all of eternity," said Martin Luther King Jr.'s sister, Christine King Farris.</p><p>She said Coretta Scott King was not only a loving wife and mother, but her brother's tireless and devoted partner who continued his work after his assassination in 1968.</p><p>"Coretta Scott King has truly earned her place alongside Martin Luther King Jr.," said King Farris, who presides over the annual King holiday celebration held at Ebenezer Baptist Church where King preached. "Martin and Coretta are free at last, united forever in God's love."</p><p>The Kings' children spoke of the love between their parents and their love of freedom, justice and human rights for all people, and urged those who remain to continue their work.</p><p>"Their tomb of rest is a symbol of unfinished struggle," said the Kings' youngest daughter Bernice, an ordained minister. "In this season of thanksgiving, we honor our mother and father ... by releasing the dream of a better world for all people." All four of the Kings' children were on hand for the dedication service, as were former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, U.S. Rep. John Lewis and former SCLC President Joseph Lowery, all veterans of the movement that Martin Luther King Jr. symbolized.</p><p>At the end of the hour-long ceremony, members of the family unveiled the new white marble tomb. On Martin Luther King Jr.'s side are inscribed his famous words: "Free at last, Free at Last, thank God Almighty I'm free at last." On Coretta Scott King's is a passage from First Corinthians in the New Testament: "And now abide Faith, Hope, Love, These Three; but the greatest of these is Love."</p><p>Before her death in January at age 78, of complications from a stroke and ovarian cancer, Coretta Scott King had wished to be buried with the husband from whom she had been separated for nearly four decades.</p><p>After her death, her body lay in a smaller, white marble tomb a few yards away from the one housing Martin Luther King Jr. at the center she built in his honor. Last week, her final wish was honored as the couple was united in a single tomb.</p><p>The gravesite is the centerpiece of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, which Coretta Scott King built shortly after her husband's death. She later moved his body to the King Center. This is technically the third grave for King, who was assassinated in Memphis in 1968.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cdd510)</p>
