King event has political overtones

ATLANTA — Hundreds of civil-rights leaders and others crowded Martin Luther King Jr.'s Ebenezer Baptist Church on Monday to celebrate the man and his legacy.

"We would be remiss if we did not commemorate Martin Luther King Jr., a champion of peace in a time of war," said Isaac Newton Farris Jr., a nephew of King and president of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

Farris urged diplomacy, economic incentives and other nonviolent efforts "as an alternative to military intervention to end the war in Iraq."

Former President Clinton, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin were among the dignitaries attending the ceremony.

"Martin aimed high, acted with faith, dreamed miracles that inspired a nation. Can we act on King's legacy without dreaming? I think not," Franklin said. "King's legacy gives light to our hopes, permission to our aspirations and relevance to our dreams."

The King Center has asked the nation to commemorate his birthday for 40 years — for more years than the civil rights leader lived, Farris said. King was assassinated at age 39 on April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, Tenn. He would have turned 79 this year.

The holiday has been observed at Ebenezer Baptist Church — where King preached from 1960 until 1968 — every year since his death. But it holds a new political significance this year because it falls closer to primary elections than in past years, after many states moved up their balloting.

South Carolina, which has a large black electorate in the Democratic primary, votes Saturday. And King's home state, Georgia, will be part of the Super Tuesday voting on Feb. 5, along with California, New York and 22 other states.

Clinton used the holiday to remind African Americans of the strides they made during his presidency, which he said was built on King's ideals.

Clinton, who has been making the rounds in the black media recently after race became a heated issue in the campaign, said it is because of King that candidates such as his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y, a woman, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., an African American, as well as Republicans including a Baptist preacher and a Mormon, could have a chance at the White House.

Clinton said his attendance at Monday's service was not political, but in a political season in which his wife and Obama are in a tight competition for black votes, Clinton went out of his way to stress his achievements.

He sat in the front pew, a few seats from Huckabee, who earlier in the day received the endorsement of a group of black clergy.

Organizers said Huckabee, a Baptist minister, was not allowed to address the crowd because of a policy prohibiting political candidates from speaking at the service. Clinton, however, was allowed to talk as a former president.

In an unusually frank recitation of his commitment to African Americans, Clinton said that during his eight years in office, he moved far more people from poverty to the middle class than other administrations.

He reminded African Americans that he has long been on their side, recalling that he was at the 1963 March on Washington that was led by King, one of the largest political demonstrations in history.

"I went to the Mall. Some of you were there, and we were up to our ankles in mud," he said.

"As governor and president, I gave more important positions to women and people of color than all of my predecessors. Not because of me, but because of the influence of Martin Luther King in my life," Clinton said. "I say that because it's a constant thing."

In recent days, the Clintons, who have long had a loyal following among African Americans, have battled charges that Hillary Clinton had marginalized the role King played in the passage of civil-rights legislation.

She has been criticized by some African Americans for her statement regarding the leading role that President Lyndon Johnson played in passing that historic legislation. Some African Americans also were angered that President Clinton recently called political aspects of Obama's campaign "a fairy tale."

Franklin, who has endorsed Obama, was the first to bring up politics, pointing out that Georgia is on the mind of the next president.

"We are at the cusp of turning the impossible into reality," Franklin said to loud applause.

"This is reality, not fantasy or fairy tales."