Albuquerque Journal

Thousands remember Martin Luther King Jr.

Major gatherings held in Memphis and Atlanta

- BY ERRIN HAINES WHACK, ADRIAN SAINZ AND KATE BRUMBACK ASSOCIATED PRESS

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Fifty years after a shot rang out in Memphis, killing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., freedom rang from the balcony of the Lorraine Motel as a bell tolled 39 times to mark a life cut short by racism.

King died among the most hated men in America, but Wednesday, admirers grateful for his life and legacy mourned his loss and pledged to carry on his unfinished work to end racial injustice and economic inequality

“Nothing would be more tragic than for us to stop at this point,” said the Rev. William Barber, who will renew King’s Poor People Campaign this spring. “We must go up together or go down together. What he said then is what we must do now.”

A host of tributes to the slain civil rights leader were held across the country. At the epicenter was Memphis, where King was assassinat­ed on April 4, 1968, while in town for a sanitation workers’ strike.

Both the speakers and marchers of the day pledged their commitment to picking up King’s mantle.

The Rev. James Lawson, who invited King to Memphis 50 years ago to assist with the sanitation workers’ strike, said more progress is needed toward King’s goal of equality for all.

“I’m still anxious and frustrated,” Lawson said. “The task is unfinished.”

Speaking in King’s hometown of Atlanta, the Rev. Bernice King recalled her father as a great orator whose message of peaceful protest was still vital decades later.

“We decided to start this day rememberin­g the apostle of nonviolenc­e,” she said.

 ?? MARK HUMPHREY/ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? Marchers in Memphis, Tenn., hold signs Wednesday that echo the signs carried by striking workers in 1968, the year Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinat­ed.
MARK HUMPHREY/ASSOCIATED PRESS Marchers in Memphis, Tenn., hold signs Wednesday that echo the signs carried by striking workers in 1968, the year Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinat­ed.

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