All the members of Christine's family were caught up in the excitement and history-making events. But that did not stop her from falling in love and getting married to Isaac Newton Farris in 1960.
Christine was happy. The couple soon had two children, Isaac Newton Jr. and Angela.
However, Christine and her husband gave a lot of time and energy to support Martin Luther King Jr's. leadership. Sometimes they worked behind the scenes at protest headquarters, at other times Christine was involved in nonviolent demonstrations, for example, in the Selma to Montgomery March for Voting Rights in 1965 and the March Against Fear in Mississippi in 1966.
But she had two young children….
"How did you cope?" I asked her. "Your children were quite young. What happened to them when all this activity was going on?"
"My first job was to see that they were safe and cared for. I always saw to it that my children were well taken care of. My mother and other people that I knew well gave me a lot of support and helped me with them," she said.
Meanwhile around her the excitement and momentum kept building.
The King family saw the beginning of real change slowly taking place through the application of the principle of non-violent civil disobedience.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place in August 1963.
The Selma to Montgomery Marches for voting rights took place in 1965 and marked a highpoint in the American civil rights movement.
Martin Luther King Jr. expressed doubts publicly on the Vietnam War.
But after the Poor People's Campaign organized with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to address issues of economic justice, tragedy struck the family with terrifying and mind-blowing power.
Tragedy struck the King family, not once, not twice, but three times between 1968 and 1974.
First it was Martin Luther King Jr. who was murdered by an assassin's bullet in Memphis on March 4, 1968, the day after he gave his "I've been to the Mountaintop" speech, the day after he had said prophetically "I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will."
Christine was devastated.
But instead of cowering under the burden of the unbearable tragedy, she resolved to do all she could to insure that her brother's life and teachings would not be forgotten.
She joined with her sister-in-law Coretta Scott King, Martin's widow, to begin plans to establish a Memorial Center, archives and library for the benefit of future generations. She became involved in planning the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site and Preservation District, preserving her family's birth home, Ebenezer Baptist Church, MLK's permanent entombment, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.
Today more than 650,000 people from all over the world visit the King Center each year where Christine is the Vice Chair and Treasurer.
Out of the pain and suffering of that tragedy a deep and lasting love grew between Christine and Coretta.
"We became very, very close," she said in our interview. "She was the sister that I never had. We had a loving relationship."
While the family was struggling to come to terms with Martin's brutal assassination and before emotional healing was complete, a second tragedy struck the following year.
His younger brother, Rev. A. D. Williams, died in "a suspicious drowning accident."
Once again the family was thrown into mourning.
Then in 1974, after losing her two brothers in such tragic circumstances, Christine suffered yet another traumatic blow when a deranged man, Marcus Wayne Chenault, just 23 years old, fired bullets from two revolvers in Ebenezer Baptist Church. One of the bullets fatally wounded Christine's mother, Alberta, right before her eyes.
"How did you cope with so much tragedy?" I asked her.
Speaking from her office at the historically black, private, independent liberal arts school for women, Spelman College, she said, "It was my faith…my faith in God. No one else but God could have carried me up through that experience. I know that God is always in charge," she said quietly. "All of my immediate family has been taken, but I do not question God. I'm still here, still surviving."
She has used the lessons she learned through all the trauma and pain to inspire the younger people at the Ebenezer Baptist Church where she serves and worships and wherever she meets them, to have faith in God. "I use my own situation as an example for them," she said.
Does she think that the civil rights movement is achieving what it set out to so many years ago?
"Change," she replied, "is very slow. We have to do things non-violently and that makes it slow. We need to have young people involved to move things forward. I'm glad that we do have many young people who are helping to move things forward."
"How would MLK feel about the political events taking place now, with an African American in the race for the position of President of the United States?" I asked.
"He would be very pleased," she responded quickly. "He dreamed that we would one day be represented by an African-American. I myself am very proud that we have come this far. It means that whatever happens we can aspire for great things."
"It is really quite remarkable," she continued after a slight pause.
Christine King Farris has received more than a dozen major awards including the NAACP Image Award for Children's Literature in 2004 and the SCLC Septima Clark Award. She has traveled to several countries including Great Britain, Panama, Israel and Hungary. She has also built a career as an outstanding educator.
She has authored "My Brother Martin" for young readers and "Martin Luther King: His Life and Dream," a work text for educators.
She mentioned that in the children's book she has portrayed her brother just as he was - "a very regular young boy". She feels that showing him just as he was – like any other normal boy - will allow other youngsters to feel that they, too, can aspire to greatness.
Now she has two more books forthcoming. The first is "March On," which is a children's book about the March on Washington.
The second is her personal memoir.
"It is called 'Through It All,' "she said.
"You learned to trust in Jesus?" I asked.
"That's right," she answered.
Barbara Nelson is a Jamaican-born journalist now living in Washington DC. She has been contributing to the Daily Gleaner for many years. 
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