WASHINGTON DC- US President Joe Biden will participate next Sunday in a tribute ceremony for Martin Luther King to be held in the church where he preached, on the anniversary of the birth of the defender of civil rights.
“I will pay my respects and express my gratitude for his life and legacy and will participate in the services of his beloved Ebenezer Baptist Church,” the president said in a statement on Friday.
This act, he added, will serve to make the United States ask itself what kind of country it wants to be: “Will we honor Dr. King’s legacy by standing together, supported by each other’s successes, enriched by each other’s differences and strengthened by compassion? of each one? I think we can,” said the president.
Ebenezer Baptist Church is located in Atlanta, Georgia, and Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) served as pastor there from 1960 until his assassination in 1968. His funeral was also held there.
Biden confirmed in the statement that he has declared next Monday a federal holiday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which has been celebrated since the 1980s on the third Monday of January.
The president encouraged Americans to celebrate the day with civic, community and service projects in King’s honor, which are organized across the country.
Among them a walk in Washington DC that will take place on Monday and commemorates when on August 28, 1963 more than a quarter of a million people participated in the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, after which Luther King pronounced the iconic phrase “I have a dream” (“I have a dream”).
King, Biden recalled, “imagined a different future for the United States” which he called “the beloved community.”
“Building beloved community required a key shift in human understanding. It meant looking beyond external differences to see the unity of all humanity. It also meant finding a way to deal with our grievances without animosity, in a way that recognized the interconnection of all humanity and allow us to move forward together,” he added.
His work, he added, “remains unfinished” and that is why the government has asked Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act to ensure that all citizens have a voice. to decide your future.
