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Jet, Feb 8, 1999

On Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, Americans everywhere took time to celebrate his life and recall his courageous fight for equality and human rights.

The national holiday theme, established by the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, was "Remember! Celebrate! Act! A Day On, Not A Day Off!"

The King Center urged the public to act on King's teachings and principles of nonviolence and human rights and also promote public service and volunteerism.

King admirers celebrated his birthday with a variety of activities from interdenominational breakfasts to parades and marches, art exhibits, music and theatrical performances, and book drives.

During a tribute in Atlanta at the Ebenezer Baptist Church where Dr. King once preached, King's widow, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, presented the 1999 Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize to John Hume, who last year received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

During related King holiday festivities, Mrs. King accepted the 1999 Martin Luther King Jr. State of Georgia Holiday Commission's Humanitarian Service Award from Georgia Governor Roy Barnes.

In the nation's capital, President Clinton urged Americans to honor King's memory by providing public service to others.

"Until all children of all backgrounds have the chance to live up to their God-given potential, free from want in a world at peace, Dr. King's work and our work will not be completed," Clinton said during his national weekly radio address.

"I urge all Americans to rise to the highest calling in our land, the calling of active citizenship. For if we work together as true neighbors," Clinton said, "we can realize Dr. King's most enduring dream."

Clinton, joined by Vice President A1 Gore and Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams, marked the King holiday by helping to renovate a senior citizens' apartment complex in the city, demonstrating the importance of public service.

Also during the Atlanta church tribute, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu delivered the keynote address and thanked King and other American civil rights leaders for paving the way to end apartheid in his country.

"We draw enormous courage from your history," Tutu said. "That you emerged from the furnace of affliction, the furnace of injustice, the furnace of oppression of slavery, emerged as strong as you have been. You helped us, 10,000 miles away."

Also in Atlanta, a special screening of the new animated film, Our Friend, Martin, was held at the King Center. The animated film, available on video, is about two boys from modern times who travel back in time and meet King at various points in his life.

King's son, Dexter King, president and CEO of the King Center, lends his voice as Dr. King in the video.

Dr. King's daughter, actress Yolanda King, celebrated her father's birthday by portraying a dedicated school-teacher in the TV civil rights movie, Selma, Lord, Selma, which aired the day before the King holiday. She also lent her voice to Our Friend, Martin, as her father's sister and her aunt Christine.

In Chicago, Dr. King's youngest daughter, Rev. Bernice King, gave the keynote address at Mayor Richard Daley's annual interfaith breakfast at the Chicago Hilton and Towers.

"It's time for healing," Rev. Bernice King said. She also stressed the need for affirmative action if the nation wants to reach her father's goal of equality for all.

"Those who argue that we need to do away with affirmative action because it means `I'm going to disadvantage myself and lose some things' fail to understand that Martin King disadvantaged himself for the advantage of the American nation."

She added, "He gave up the safe confines ... of having the security of not having to deal with threats upon his life. He disadvantaged and discomforted himself, but it was a greater benefit that came."

Dr. King's son, Martin Luther King III, who serves as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was co-founded by his father, participated in several tributes during King Week, including one at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in North Chicago, IL, and in Atlanta at the Butler Street YMCA's Hungry Club Forum Luncheon.

In Chicago, Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, led the tribute at PUSH-Excel's Ninth Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Breakfast at the Chicago Hi]ton and Towers.

Rev. Jackson, who is responsible for Wall Street's New York Stock Exchange closing down in recognition of the King Holiday for the first time in 1998 and again this year, said that economic inclusion for minorities is needed to fulfill King's dream of total equality.

"Slavery is behind us; legal segregation is behind us," Jackson said.

He urged minorities to realize that there's no real power in credit cards and lottery tickets.

"The new chains of slavery happen to be credit cards and lottery tickets," he warned.

He noted that the only way to achieve King's dream of equality is by "teaching our people to go from the lottery to the markets, from gambling boats to boardrooms."