ATLANTA — Dr. Christine King Farris, the older sister of Martin Luther King, Jr. and an acclaimed educator who taught at Spelman for more than fifty years, died on Thursday at 95, according to a post from the King Center on Twitter.
King Farris was one of the foundational influences in establishing both the King Center after her brother's assassination and what would become the Learning Resources Center at Spelman's Department of Education.
She was a Spelman educator, and director of the Learning Resources Center, for 56 years before retiring in 2014.
The King Center is hosting a press conference on Friday about the loss of King Farris. Re-watch the video below.
Several of the King family members and leaders at the center spoke about the many accomplishments she had made in her life.
"The matriarch has left us," Issac Newton Farris Senior, son of King-Farris, said, adding later, "I have received an, overwhelming reach out from all over this county."
He followed up, saying that King-Farris died in her sister's at home in peace. Farris continued to tell a story about his mother when she grew up, stating the family didn't even have a crib when she was born.
During the Civil Rights Movement, she participated in the landmark Selma to Montgomery March in 1965 and the March Against Fear in Mississippi the next year.
Born Sept. 11, 1927, she and younger brothers MLK and Rev. Alfred Daniel King were "three peas in a pod," according to a Spelman profile.
The King Center sent out the following statement on Dr. King Farris' passing:
"The King Center joins the King and Farris families, Civil Rights activists, the historic Ebenezer Baptist Chuch family, academic family, and people of goodwill worldwide in celebrating the life of our servant leader, founding board member, former Vice-Chair & Treasurer, activist educator, and family matriarch, the beloved Dr. Christine King Farris. The sister of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. passed on the morning of June 29 at age 95."