By ERRIN HAINES (Associated Press)
Americans observed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday on Monday, Jan. 17, with thousands volunteering for service projects and more reflecting on his lessons of nonviolence and civility in the week following 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.
“Last week a senseless rampage in Tucson reminded us that more than 40 years after Dr. King’s own tragic death, our struggle to eradicate violence and to promote peace goes on,” Holder said.
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 following the shootings.
“After a painful week where so many of us were focused on the tragedy, it’s good for us to remind ourselves of what this country is all about,” he said.
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.
Two of the King’s four children, Martin Luther King III and the Rev. Bernice King attended Monday’s ceremony. Their brother, Dexter King, was unable to attend the service because he is recovering from injuries he received in a car crash last year. Yolanda King, the eldest of the King siblings, died in 2007. Bernice King is also president-elect of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which her father co-founded in 1957.
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