Posted on 01/15/2007 10:07:13 AM PST by NormsRevenge
ATLANTA - From the pulpit of the church where Martin Luther King Jr. once was pastor, Atlanta's mayor reminded the congregation Monday that his work for peace and justice remains unfinished.
Mayor Shirley Franklin admonished congregants at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church not to pay tribute to King's dream on his birthday, observed as a national holiday Monday, and then contradict it the next.
"Millions can't find jobs, have no health insurance and struggle to make ends meet, working minimum wage jobs. What's going on?" she said, repeating a refrain from soul singer Marvin Gaye.
"Thousands of black and Latino students drop out of high school believing education will not matter and statistics say it doesn't because they can't find jobs ... What's going on?"
Earlier in the service, Georgia's newly elected congressman, Rep. Hank Johnson (news, bio, voting record), paid tribute to King's children and their late mother, Coretta Scott King, who died nearly a year ago.
"On this day we honor their sacrifice and commitment, and we must carry on their work," said Johnson, a Democrat. "Today as we salute Dr. King, we also lift up the life and work of Mrs. King who left us last year."
President Bush, in an unannounced stop at a high school near the White House, said people should honor King on the holiday by finding ways to give back to their communities. Classes were not in session but volunteers were sprucing up the school.
"I encourage people all around the country to seize any opportunity they can to help somebody in need," Bush said. "And by helping somebody in need you're honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King."
In a ceremony Sunday at Ebenezer Baptist Church, King's eldest daughter evoked the civil rights movement while reminding those remembering her parents that America has not yet reached the promised land of peace and racial equality.
"We must keep reaching across the table and, in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, feed each other," Yolanda King said Sunday during a presentation that was part motivational speech, part drama.
Yolanda King, 51, told The Associated Press the holiday provides an opportunity for everyone to live her father's dream, and that she has her mother's example to follow.
"I connected with her spirit so strongly," she said when asked how she is coping with her mother's loss. "I am in direct contact with her spirit, and that has given me so much peace and so much strength."
Several hundred people gathered Monday morning in West Columbia, S.C., for a breakfast prayer service honoring King.
The Rev. Brenda Kneece, 45, executive minister of the South Carolina Christian Action Council, said King set the standard for sacrifice and vision.
"The vision became even more powerful because he understood the risks he was taking," Kneece said. "It's very important for our children to know that his sacrifice didn't win the war. We still have to keep at it."
A management refusal to grant the King holiday as a paid day off led to a job action Monday at a huge Smithfield Foods Inc. hog slaughtering plant at Tar Heel, N.C.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union estimated that 400 of the 2,500 people scheduled to work at the Smithfield plant walked out or didn't show up for work Monday. The union and the workers asked Smithfield last week to grant Monday as a paid holiday, but the company said the request came too late for a change of work plans.
This year's holiday comes on the day King would have turned 78. King was assassinated while standing on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968. His confessed killer, James Earl Ray, was arrested two months later in London.
Coretta Scott King died last year on Jan. 31 at age 78. An activist in her own right, she also fought to shape and preserve her husband's legacy after his death, and shortly after his death she founded what would become the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.
"Thousands of black and Latino students drop out of high school believing education will not matter and statistics say it doesn't because they can't find jobs ... What's going on?"
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Hey Mayor Shirley, try studying history or ..
Ask your party and elected own on the Hill, what's going on? Their 'Raw Deal" and "Great Society" was supposed to lift everyone, what's going on? Indeed.
Their agenda may be able to squeeze you in, someday. Unfortuantely, most of them could care less about you and only care about feathering their own nests and legacies.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin shakes hands with Rev. Simmie Lee Harvey after addressing a Martin Luther King, Jr. rally in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 15, 2007. Rev. Harvey was one of the founding members of the Southern Christian Leadership Council with Dr. King. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)
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U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) (L) greets supporters next to Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. before the Annual Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Breakfast in Chicago January 15, 2007. REUTERS/John Gress (UNITED STATES)
Former Sen. John Edwards, third from left, joins Martin Luther King III, left, his wife Elizabeth , the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr. and others at a 'Realizing the Dream,' Martin Luther King Day commemoration at Riverside Church in New York, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2007. Edwards called on Americans to resist President Bush's planned troop escalation in Iraq, echoing a plea by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. 40 years ago to end the Vietnam War.
(AP Photos/Kathy Willens)
"The vision became even more powerful because he understood the risks he was taking," Kneece said. "It's very important for our children to know that his sacrifice didn't win the war. We still have to keep at it."
...these people (blacks) will never learn. Democrats implanted chips in their heads that keep saying "Dems will make things alright" over and over. I guess the "sacrifice" and "winning the war" would be against conservatism? We don't offer hand-outs...not good. I am so sick and tired of the same BS every MLK day I could just puke. Well you boneheads just got your Kwanzaa gift...a democratic house and senate. We'll see "What's Going on" in a few months.
King's "Dream" speech had more to do with a color-blind society and being judged by one's character more than by the color of one's skin. It was not about federal goodies and excuses for living at the bottom rung of American society. Everyone would do well to go back and read King's speech. And the so-called black leaders of today would do well to get back to King's ideals.
Did MLK say, "Sit on your ass and let whitey take care of you because you will never succeed"?
Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)
You get my brainless behind through the primaries and you can have a nice large envelope of cash...envelope color unimportant of course! Hyuk hyuk hyuk......
I think Bill Cosby has addressed this issue. I agree, Dr. King's "dream" was about racial inequality NOT economics. His "dream" will continue to be unrealized as long as there is racism, and there continues to be racism long after he's been gone.
I have taught my three children that content of character and personal responsibility is the key when you meet new people, Not Skin Color. I wish others would adopt this famous creed.
In certain ways, I respect the old USSR more than our own socialists.
At least they suffered under a communist system, while American leftists thrive and get fat off the blessings of capitalism, democracy, and the blood of our military.
Immersed in a black inner city enclave, okay, but saying that in an area filled with Latinos might be dangerous.
Latinos and Blacks share no love for each other from what I've seen in real life.
Racism will always be with us. The difference between today and MLK's time is that racism can no longer be used as an excuse for black people not to succeed in this country. However the race pimps need to perpetuate this myth to keep them in the news and relevant.
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