Commemorative events for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. slid
seamlessly into celebrations of the swearing-in Monday of the nation's
first black president, with many Americans moved by the reminder of how
far the country has come since the 1960s.
"This is the dream that Dr. King talked about in
his speech. We see history in the making," said Joyce Oliver, who
observed King Day by visiting the National Civil Rights Museum in
Memphis, Tenn., built on the site of the old Lorraine Motel, where King
was assassinated in 1968.
In Atlanta, at the 45th annual service for the
civil rights leader at the church where he was pastor, those gathered in
the sanctuary were invited to stay to watch President Barack Obama's
second inauguration on a big-screen TV.
As the nearly three-hour service came to a close at
Ebenezer Baptist Church, organizers suggested forgoing the traditional
singing of "We Shall Overcome" because the inauguration was about to
begin. But the crowd shouted protests, so the choir and congregation
sang the civil rights anthem before settling in to watch the events in
Washington.
In the nation's capital, several dozen people took
turns taking pictures of the King statue before heading to the National
Mall, about a 15-minute walk away, for the inauguration.
Nicole Hailey, 34, drove in with her family from
Monroe, N.C., a six-hour trip that started at midnight. She attended
Obama's first inauguration four years ago and was carrying her Metro
ticket from that day, a commemorative one with the president's face
printed on it.
She and her family visited the King memorial before staking out a spot for the swearing-in.
"It's Martin Luther King's special day," she said. "We're just celebrating freedom."
In Columbia, S.C., civil rights leaders paused
during their annual King Day rally to watch the inauguration on a big
screen. Most of the crowd of several hundred stayed to watch Obama's
address.
"You feel like anything is possible," Jelin
Cunningham, a 15-year-old black girl, said of Obama's presidency. "I've
learned words alone can't hurt or stop you, because there have been so
many hateful things said about him over the past four years."
At the Atlanta service, King's youngest daughter,
Bernice King, said the country had been through a difficult year, with
divisive elections, military conflicts and natural disasters.
"We pray that this day will be the beginning of a
new day in America," she said. "It will be a day when people draw
inspiration from the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. It will
be a day when people realize and recognize that if it were not for Dr.
King and those who fought the fight fought in that movement, we would
not be celebrating this presidency."
She also stressed her father's commitment to
nonviolence, saying that after the 1956 bombing of the family's home in
Montgomery, Ala., her father stood on the porch and urged an angry,
armed crowd to fight not with guns but with Christian love.
"This apostle of nonviolence perhaps introduced one
of the bravest experiences of gun control that we've ever heard of in
the history of our nation," she said.
The service also kicked off a year of celebrations
of the 50th anniversary of King's "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered
Aug. 28, 1963, in Washington. A group of students, led by King's
great-niece Farris Christine Watkins, delivered sections of the speech
in turn.
By the end, the crowd was on its feet, shouting, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
The keynote speaker was the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez,
president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, a
socially conservative evangelical association. It marked the first time a
Latino had been invited to deliver the King Day address at Ebenezer
Baptist.
He urged the audience to work to fulfill King's dream.
"Silence is not an option when 30 million of our
brothers and sisters live in poverty," he said. "Silence is not an
option when 11 million undocumented individuals continue to live in the
shadows."
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