ATLANTA (AP) — The nation was honoring civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. today— the same day it celebrated the inauguration of the first black president to his second term.
A quirk in the calendar pushed President Barack Obama’s public swearing-in in Washington onto the national holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader.
In Atlanta, an annual commemorative service was held at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King preached. The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference was the keynote speaker, marking the first time a Latino leader served in the role.
Bernice King, the youngest daughter of the slain civil rights leader, also addressed the crowd. She stressed her father’s legacy of peace and nonviolence, describing how he calmed an armed, angry crowd when their home in Montgomery, Ala., was bombed. Her father stood on the porch and urged the crowd to fight not with guns but with Christian love, an act his daughter called “one of the bravest experiences of gun control that we’ve ever heard of in the history of our nation.”
In Washington, several dozen people took turns Monday morning taking pictures with the statue of King before heading to the National Mall, about a 15-minute walk away.
