MU| A r c h i v e s
By 1955, the Kings were married and living in Montgomery, Ala.
The Thomases had moved to California where Cecil would work
for the University of California, the Friends Committee on National
Legislation and the AFSC, and Fran would teach in the Berkeley public
schools. When a Montgomery seamstress named Rosa Parks refused
to give up her bus seat to a white man, the Thomases organized a bus
protest caravan all the way to Montgomery to support the watershed
381-day bus boycott.
The woman who taught Coretta to play the clarinet and trumpet in
high school continued to support Coretta’s musical talents and the
cause of civil rights. Fran composed the song “No Crystal Stair,”
based on the Langston Hughes poem “Mother to Son,” which Coretta
performed in a series of Freedom Concerts that raised money for
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Fran also composed
an original piece for Coretta, “My Feet are Tired,” inspired by the
Montgomery boycott.
before there ever was a civil rights movement,” Ben Bonhorst,
her Ph.D. adviser at MSU once said.
When Fran became ill, she returned to California to be near
one of her sons. She died on Feb. 9, 1999, in Santa Rosa.
In many ways, Fran’s life served as a model for Manchester’s
Peace Studies Program, the first such undergraduate program
in the world, launched by Gladdys Muir in 1948. Frances
Smith Thomas received Manchester’s Alumni Honor Award
in 1980.
By Melinda Lantz ’81
When King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, Fran stayed with Coretta
and her four children in Atlanta, helping with correspondence and
speeches and providing the family comfort and encouragement.
About a year later, Fran experienced her own tragic loss when Cecil was
killed in an auto accident. With her two sons grown, Fran created a new
life of her own, earning her Ph.D. at Michigan State University. There,
she worked for the School of Urban Affairs for 20 years, developing
the human rights program for MSU’s Department of Racial and
Ethnic Studies.
In the summers, Fran returned to Atlanta where she worked at the
Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change and
served on its board of directors. Fran “was in the civil rights movement
Frances Smith ’39 Thomas (opposite page) was an
activist, educator and gifted musician. Above, she shakes
hands with President A. Blair Helman as she receives her
Alumni Honor Award from Manchester in 1980.
A rchives
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