Civility stressed on MLK Day

Associated Press

ATLANTA

The nation observed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday Monday with thousands volunteering for service projects and more reflecting on his lessons of nonviolence and civility in the week after the shootings in Arizona.

Six people were killed in Tucson, and Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is fighting for her life. The violent outburst was a reminder to many gathered at King’s former church in Atlanta that the Baptist preacher’s message remained relevant nearly four decades after his own untimely death at the hands of an assassin.

Attorney General Eric Holder praised him as “our nation’s greatest drum major of peace” and said the Jan. 8 bloodshed was a call to recommit to King’s values of nonviolence, tolerance, compassion and justice.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle volunteered to paint for a service project at a middle school in Washington’s Capitol Hill. He urged Americans to get out into their communities — a step he suggested would have special meaning after the shootings.

National and local politicians joined members of the King family at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to mark what would have been the civil-rights icon’s 82nd birthday. Members of the King family also laid a wreath at the tombs of King and his widow, Coretta Scott King, on the 25th anniversary of the federal holiday established to honor the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The largely African-American audience of about 2,000 gathered at Ebenezer — where King preached from 1960 until his death in 1968 — included parents and children, members of the clergy, politicians and foot soldiers of the civil- rights movement.

Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who worked with King during the civil-rights movement, issued a renewed call for Americans to unite in peace and love as King preached during his lifetime.

“If Dr. King could speak to us today, he would tell us that it does not matter how much we disapprove of another person’s point of view; there is never a reason to deny another human being the respect he or she deserves,” Lewis said.

In Philadelphia, hundreds of volunteers, including Mayor Michael Nutter, helped refurbish computers for needy residents as part of the city’s “day of service” events to mark the King holiday.

In South Carolina, the day was an opportunity for the NAACP to underscore its opposition to a Confederate flag that flies outside the Statehouse.

“Take down that flag,” North Carolina NAACP president, the Rev. William Barber, told the audience at a rally in Columbia. He argued the flag’s presence disrespects people not only in South Carolina but across the nation.