This holiday marks what would have been the 93rd birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was just 39 when he was assassinated in 1968 while helping sanitation workers strike for better pay and workplace safety in Memphis, Tennessee.
Included in King’s legacy is his fight for voting rights for all Americans including black folk. King’s eldest son criticized Biden and Congress as a whole on Monday for failing to pass voting rights legislation.
President Biden said all Americans must commit to finishing the unfinished work of Martin Luther King Jr., delivering jobs and justice and protecting “the sacred right to vote, a right from which all other rights flow.”
Holiday events included marches in several cities and the annual Martin Luther King Jr. service at the slain civil rights leader’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock is the senior pastor.
Many politicians will offer pre-recorded speeches because of the pandemic.
“Let the word go forth, you can not remember Dr. King and dismember his legacy at the same time,” Warnock said. “If you will speak his name you have to stand up for voting rights, you have to stand up on behalf of the poor and the oppressed and the disenfranchised.”