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A2 UP FRONT
Tuesday 17 January 2023

On King’s holiday, daughter calls for bold action over words

storm. Maine’s first Black
House speaker urged resi-
dents Monday to honor
King’s memory by joining in
acts of service.
“His unshakable faith, pow-
erful nonviolent activism
and his vision for peace
and justice in our world
altered the course of his-
tory,” Rachel Talbot Ross
said in a statement. Talbot
Ross is also the daughter of
Maine’s first black lawmak-
er, and a former president
of the Portland NAACP.
“We must follow his ex-
ample of leading with
light and love and recom-
mit ourselves to building a
more compassionate, just
and equal community,”
she added.
At Ebenezer, Warnock,
who has led the congrega-
tion for 17 years, hailed his
predecessor’s role in secur-
ing ballot access for Black
Americans. But, like Bernice
King, the senator warned
against a reductive under-
President Joe Biden speaks at the National Action Network's Martin Luther King, Jr., Day breakfast, Monday, Jan. 16, 2023, in Washington.
Associated Press standing of King.
“Don’t just call him a civil
rights leader. He was a
Continued from Front cy over autocracy, or com- mayor of Boston, said edu- highlighted Temple Uni- faith leader,” Warnock
munity over chaos? Love cation restores trust. Quot- versity Hospital’s “Fighting said. “Faith was the foun-
“He was God’s prophet over hate?” Biden asked ing King, she called for Chance” program and in- dation upon which he did
sent to this nation and Monday. “These are the overcoming the “fatigue of cluded materials to enable everything he did. You
even the world to guide us questions of our time that despair” to enact change. immediate response to vic- don’t face down dogs and
and forewarn us. ... A pro- I ran for president to try to “It is sometimes in those tims at the scene of gunfire, water hoses because you
phetic word calls for an help answer. ... Dr. King’s moments when we feel organizers said. Recipients read Nietzsche or Niebuhr.
inconvenience because it life and legacy — in my most tired, most despair- are to be trained in the use You gotta tap into that
challenges us to change view — shows the way for- ing, that we are just about of the materials, which in- thing, that God he said he
our hearts, our minds and ward.” Other commemora- to break through,” Wu told clude tourniquets, gauze, met anew in Montgomery
our behavior,” Bernice King tions echoed Bernice King’s attendees at a memorial chest seals and other items when someone threatened
said. “Dr. King, the inconve- reminder and Biden’s al- breakfast. to treat critical wounds, to bomb his house and kill
nient King, puts some de- lusions that the “Beloved Volunteers in Philadelphia they said. his wife and his new child.”
mands on us to change our Community” — Martin Lu- held a “day of service” fo- In Selma, Alabama, a semi- King, Warnock said, “left
ways.” ther King’s descriptor for a cused on gun violence pre- nal site in the civil rights the comfort of a filter that
President Joe Biden was world in which all people vention. The city has seen a movement, residents were made the whole world his
scheduled Monday to ad- are free from fear, discrimi- surge in homicides that saw commemorating King as parish,” turning faith into
dress an MLK breakfast nation, hunger and vio- 516 people killed last year they recover from a deadly “the creative weapon of
hosted in Washington by lence — remains elusive. and 562 the year before, storm system that moved love and nonviolence.”
the Rev. Al Sharpton’s Na- In Boston, Mayor Michelle the highest total in at least across the South last week. While echoing Bernice
tional Action Network. Wu talked about a fight for six decades. King was not present at Sel- King’s call for bolder pub-
Sharpton got his start as a the truth in an era of hyper- Some participants in the ma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge lic policy, Warnock noted
civil rights organizer in his partisanship and misinfor- effort’s signature project, for the initial march known some progress in his lifetime.
teens as youth director of mation. led by Children’s Hospital as “Bloody Sunday,” when As he’s done through two
an anti-poverty project of “We’re battling not just two of Philadelphia, worked to Alabama state troopers at- Senate campaigns, War-
King’s Southern Christian sides or left or right and a assemble gun safety kits for tacked and beat march- nock noted he was born a
Leadership Conference. gradient in between that public distribution. The kits ers in March 1965. But he year after King’s assassina-
“This is a time for choos- have to somehow come to include “gun cable locks joined a subsequent pro- tion, when both of Georgia
ing,” Biden said, repeating compromise, but a growing and additional safety de- cession that successfully senators were staunch seg-
themes from a speech he movement of hate, abuse, vices for childproofing,” crossed the bridge toward regationists, including one
delivered Sunday at Eb- extremism and white su- according to organizers. the Capitol in Montgom- Warnock described as lov-
enezer at the invitation of premacy fueled by misin- They also include informa- ery, punctuating efforts ing “the Negro” as long as
Sen. Raphael Warnock, the formation, fueled by con- tion about firearm storage, that pushed Congress to he was “in his place at the
senior pastor at Ebenezer spiracy theories that are health and social services pass and President Lyndon back door.”
who recently won re-elec- taking root at every level,” information, and coping in Johnson to sign the Voting But, Warnock said, “Be-
tion to a full term as Geor- she said. the aftermath of gun vio- Rights Act of 1965. cause of what Dr. King and
gia’s first Black U.S. senator. Wu, the first woman and lence. The Pettus Bridge was un- because of what you did ...
“Will we choose democra- person of color elected Other kits being assembled scathed by Thursday’s I now sit in his seat.”q