Most of the heroes of the modern Civil Rights Movement attended Coretta Scott King’s funeral last week in suburban Atlanta. There was Jesse Jackson, the first King lieutenant to notify Coretta that her husband had been shot in Memphis. On hand was Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.), who, as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), marched with King and was severely beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge at the beginning of the Selma-to-Montgomery, Ala. march.

In the audience was C.T. Vivian, the brave SCLC tactician who stood up to Dallas County (Ala.) Sheriff Jim Clark. He was caught on film taking a group of African-Americans to the courthouse to register to vote, only to have the sheriff bloody him with a nightstick.

Also present was NAACP Board Chair Julian Bond, SNCC’s director of communications in the 1960s, and former NAACP Board Chair Myrlie Evers, whose husband, Medgar, was also shot to death because of his civil rights work.

Entertainer/Activist Harry Belafonte, a major SCLC donor, didn’t miss a major civil rights march when Dr. King was alive and he wasn’t about to miss Coretta Scott King’s funeral. He was so close to the family that he escorted Mrs. King to her husband’s funeral.

And who could ever forget the contributions of Dick Gregory? He walked away from a million dollar annual income as a premier comedian to march with Dr. King, risking both his life and his career.

The new guard of civil rights leaders were also there: Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League; Bruce Gordon, head of the NAACP; Al Sharpton, former presidential candidate and president of the National Action Network and Charles Steele Jr., president of SCLC, Dr. King’s old organization.

Despite their varied contributions to the civil rights movement, none of the aforementioned was allowed to speak at the funeral. Belafonte had been invited but the invitation was withdrawn when Bush decided to attend the funeral. In January, Belafonte called Bush “the greatest terrorist in the world” and equated the Department of Homeland Security with Hitler’s Gestapo. Evidently, the funeral organizers were more interested in not offending Bush than recognizing the person who had actually supported Dr. King and his work.

Of the 30 speakers who were neither relatives nor participating in musical tributes, only five or six marched regularly with Dr. King.

Even more insulting, William Sessions, a former FBI director, was given time on the program, even though the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, actively sought to discredit Dr. King, taping his private conversations and urging him to commit suicide.

President Bush had the temerity to show up even though he has fought against many of the programs and ideas advanced by the Kings. University of Maryland Political Science Professor Ron Walters and I appeared on Jesse Jackson’s syndicated radio program last Sunday and Jackson cited several examples of Bush being disingenuous.

He noted that Bush praised Dr. King on his birthday and then dispatched his solicitor general to the Supreme Court the next day to oppose two University of Michigan affirmative action programs; the president placed a wreath on the grave of Dr. King in Atlanta shortly before making a recess appointment of Mississippi Judge Charles Pickering, an ultra-conservative, to a federal appeals court and after attending Coretta Scott King’s funeral in Georgia, Bush returned to Washington, D.C. to propose a budget that would, if enacted, extend tax cuts mostly to the wealthy and cut programs vital to poor people.

Interestingly, Right-wing commentators have been trying to define what should be deemed appropriate behavior at Mrs. King’s funeral. These are the same people who not only opposed Dr. King when he was alive, they’ve attempted to appropriate his image after his death to further their own anti-civil rights agenda.

Many of them have suggested that politics should not have been injected into the funeral service. Newsflash: Politics were injected the moment George W. Bush, three former U.S. presidents, the governor of Georgia and several planes of lawmakers from Washington, D.C. decided to attend the ceremony.

Dr. King did not let politics dictate his actions. Prominent church officials and movement colleagues criticized him for broadening the civil rights agenda to address the issues of war and peace. Still, he stood his ground. Dr. King never turned his back on friends and supporters to appease elected officials seeking to advance their political careers by pretending to support a cause that they had been actively undermining. It’s too bad that the organizers of Coretta Scott King’s funeral didn’t demonstrate the same level of courage and integrity.