In Columbia, South Carolina, Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley addressed a King rally at the state capitol a day after their party debate in Charleston.
Advertisement
The annual King Day at the Dome was the first since the Confederate flag had been removed from the statehouse grounds here, giving the event more of a celebratory feel.
The visit by the president and first lady Michelle Obama to a Washington school was among a raft of speeches, tributes and parades on the 30th anniversary of the US holiday commemorating King. The crowd listens intently at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gathering Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016, at the Lenoir County courthouse in Kinston, N.C.
Sanders called King “one of the great leaders in the history of the country” and urged the crowd not to view King as “a historical figure”. Sanders, a Vermont senator, said that King at the time of his assassination in 1968 was fighting for US economic equality.
Elsewhere, the King Center in Atlanta celebrated the holiday with a remembrance ceremony at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Other North Long Beach service projects included events at the field office of Long Beach City Councilmember Rex Richardson, which featured Images of America: Selma author and Long Beach resident Sharon Jackson speaking about the March on Selma and the Civil Rights Movement.
Lee says celebrating King, while acknowledging past and current wrongs, makes Siouxland stronger.
While people have been distracted by TV reality shows and music “that tears down instead of uplifts”, many injustices have occurred and “we’re about to create right here in this civilized society the wild, wild west with guns”, said King’s daughter, the Rev. Bernice King.
The theme of freedom is especially meaningful this year, she said, because it is the 50th anniversary of her father’s trip to Chicago to highlight the need for open and fair housing. In a nod to that legacy, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro was set to speak at Monday’s service. In St. Paul, protesters want the case of Marcus Golden reopened.
Advertisement
In Minneapolis, activists braved frigid temperatures as they marched onto a Mississippi River bridge that connects Minneapolis and St. Paul to protest the deaths of two black men shot by police previous year in the Twin Cities. A grand jury declined to indict the officers involved in that shooting.
