ATLANTA: Although the United States has recognized Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday for nearly 40 years, his youngest daughter said Monday that the country has not fully embraced and treated the lessons he taught.
The Rev. Bernice King, who is in charge of The King Center in Atlanta, claimed that officials, especially politicians, often devalue his father's legacy by turning him into a "comfortable and convenient king" who delivers simple platitudes.
"We enjoy quoting King during and after the holiday. At the memorial service held at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her father once served as pastor, she said, For days the king refuses to stay.
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The annual service at Ebenezer, sponsored by the center, was the highlight of the 38th Federal King's Holiday celebration. King would have turned 94 on Sunday. He was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 while fighting for better pay and working conditions for the city's sanitation workers.
Bernice King spoke on institutional and personal racism, economic and health care disparities, police violence, a militarized international system, rigid immigration structures, and the climate crisis in a tone that was reminiscent of her father's.
She expressed her "weariness, frustration and, frankly, despair" at hearing her father's words about justice so often and seeing "so little progress" in solving the most pressing issues facing society.
Bernice King said, "A prophetic word invokes a discomfort because it challenges us to change our hearts, our minds, and our behavior.
He was a prophet of God sent to guide and warn us in this country and even the world. Dr. King, the uneasy king, makes certain demands of us to change our behavior.
The National Action Network, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton, was hosting an MLK breakfast in Washington on Monday, and President Joe Biden was scheduled to speak there.
As the youth director of the King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Anti-Poverty Project, Sharpton began his career as a civil rights activist when he was in his teens.
It's time to make a decision, Biden said Sunday, repeating themes from a speech he gave in Ebenezer at the invitation of Sen. Raphael Warnock. Sen. Warnock is the senior pastor in Ebenezer and the first black US senator from Georgia.
Shall we take the side of community over anarchy or democracy over autocracy? Victory of love over hate? Biden inquired on Monday. "These are the issues of our time, and I ran for president to try to address them.... In my opinion, Dr. King's life and legacy point the way forward."
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Other commemorations echoed Bernice King's warning and Vice President Biden's references that the "beloved community," which was Martin Luther King's term for a society devoid of fear, discrimination, hunger and violence, is still elusive.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu spoke about the need to stand up for the truth in a time of extreme bias and misinformation.
"We are fighting a growing movement of hate, abuse, extremism, and white supremacy fueled by misinformation, fueled by conspiracy theories that are taking root at every level," she said. "We are not just fighting two sides or left or right and there is a shield in the middle that has to be compromised somehow."
According to Wu, the first woman and person of color to be elected mayor of Boston, education restores trust. She cited King when she urged overcoming "the fatigue of despair" to bring about change.
Wu told attendees at a memorial breakfast that "It is sometimes in those moments when we feel most worn out, most hopeless, that we are just about to break."
Philadelphia volunteers held a "day of service" with the goal of preventing gun violence. Murders in the city have increased dramatically, with 516 people killed in 2017 and 562 the year before – the highest number in at least 60 years.
Some participants worked to put together gun safety kits for public distribution as part of the effort's centerpiece project, which was directed by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
According to the organizers, the kits come with "gun cable locks and additional security tools for childproofing." They also include details on how to store firearms, social and health services, and how to cope after gun violence.
Other kits being put together, according to organizers, featured Temple University Hospital's "Fighting Chance" program and supplies to provide quick aid to victims.
He said recipients will receive training on how to use the supplies, which include tourniquets, gauze, chest seals and other equipment for treating serious wounds.
Residents of Selma, Alabama, a crucial location in the civil rights movement, remembered King as they recovered from a deadly storm system that passed through the South last week.
When Alabama state troopers attacked and beat marchers on "Bloody Sunday" in March 1965, King was not present at Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed by Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson as a result of efforts that he joined later in a procession that successfully crossed the bridge leading to the Capitol in Montgomery.
The storm on Thursday had no effect on the Pettus Bridge. Monday, the first Black House speaker in Maine urged citizens to participate in charitable deeds in King's memory.
His unwavering faith, effective nonviolent activism, and vision for peace and justice in the world, according to a statement from Rachel Talbot Ross, "alternated the course of history." Talbot Ross is a former president of the Portland NAACP and the daughter of Maine's first black lawmaker.
She continued, "We must recommit ourselves to creating a more compassionate, just, and equal community and follow his example of leading with light and love.
Warnock, who has been the pastor of Ebenezer for 17 years, praised his predecessor's accomplishments in securing voting rights for Black Americans. However, like Bernice King, the senator cautioned against having a narrow perspective on King.
Do not simply refer to him as a civil rights leader. He was a figure of faith, according to Warnock. "Faith served as the cornerstone of everything he did.
Because you've read Nietzsche or Niebuhr, you won't have to deal with dogs and water hoses. When someone threatened to bomb his home and kill his family in Montgomery, he claimed he had a new encounter with God.
In order to transform faith into "the creative weapon of love and nonviolence," King, according to Warnock, "left the comfort of a filter that made the whole world his parish."
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Warnock acknowledged some advancements during his lifetime while reiterating Bernice King's call for more daring public policy. Warnock, who has run for the Senate twice, pointed out that he was born in a time when both Georgia senators were ardent supporters of segregation, including one who loved "the Negro" as long as he was "in his place at the back door." However, Warnock added, "I now sit in his seat because of what Dr. King and you did.