Faithful Rally Across U.S. to Keep King Dream Alive

Still faithful to the dream of America becoming “the promised land” of equality, supporters of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. marked the 20th anniversary of his assassination Monday by calling for a renewed commitment to his struggle.

In Los Angeles, religious and civil rights leaders stood in front of a group of homeless people in downtown Los Angeles to demand a “society of justice, peace and mutual respect” for all.

In Washington, they gathered outside a $50-million District of Columbia municipal building, recently constructed in the rubble of a neighborhood destroyed by rioting that followed King’s killing, and did the same.

“Many are frustrated that we are celebrating changes that have come all too slowly,” said Washington Mayor Marion Barry Jr. “We’re here today to rededicate ourselves to finishing the agenda Dr. King began.”

In King’s hometown of Atlanta, his widow, Coretta Scott King, led an observance at King’s grave and announced plans for a march in Washington on Aug. 27, the anniversary of a civil rights march during which King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Said Mrs. King: “They have slain the dreamer, but we’re here to say that they cannot slay the mighty dream.”

And in Memphis, Tenn., where King was gunned down during a visit to lend support to a 1968 strike by city sanitation workers, there was sadness as 5,000 people marched through town to lay a wreath at the motel where he was shot.

“We look around and see people dying in the ghettoes,” said marcher Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was once headed by King. “Too many people are dying and crying.”

In the Los Angeles area, those who died at the hands of gang members were mourned as church leaders and politicians eulogized King at a ceremony attended by about 200 at Martin Luther King Jr. General Hospital.

“Dr. King would be sad today to see young people killing each other . . . it would break his heart,” county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn said.

To the cheers of many in the crowd, Bishop E. Lynn Brown of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church said gang members should be tossed into the Pacific Ocean.

“The very people King fought for have imprisoned us,” Brown said. “You can’t go out of your room, the one with the five or six locks.”

Los Angeles March

Saying their cause is the same as that of the Memphis garbage men King embraced, about 100 Los Angeles County home care workers marched from a union hall to a memorial service in King’s honor Monday evening. The marchers said they represent more than 40,000 workers who earn $3.72 an hour caring for ill or disabled recipients of public assistance.

“This is Memphis all over again,” Mark Ridley-Thomas, executive director of Los Angeles’ SCLC chapter, told the demonstrators. “We are saying again today, ‘We are somebody.’ We’re men and women who deserve to be treated with dignity.”

Home care workers earn less than most baby-sitters, said Albertine Walker, a leader of the group. She said the county refuses to recognize their union--Local 434 of the Service Employees International Union--arguing that the patients, not the county, employ the workers.

“Your cause is not only important, but it is a righteous cause,” the Rev. James M. Lawson Jr., Los Angeles SCLC president, said. “A key issue in Memphis was the recognition of the workers as a union.”

The workers then marched four blocks to the Good Shepherd Baptist Church at 53rd and Figueroa streets for an ecumenical memorial service attended by about 200.

Memorials for King will conclude with a march through downtown Los Angeles streets Saturday, said leaders of an activist group called Coalition ‘88, which is planning the parade.

Lawson, pastor of Holman United Methodist Church, said as many as 15,000 are expected for the 11 a.m. march from Pershing Square to City Hall.

Dozens of homeless men lounged in Pershing Square as Lawson and other coalition members spoke there earlier in the day. The theme of the march will be “human care, not warfare,” said Lawson.

Marchers will be asked to sign up to become precinct workers for the upcoming presidential election, he said.

They will help counter the notion that Democratic hopeful Jesse Jackson is “too radical, outside the mainstream,” Lawson said.

“We must change that mainstream. If that mainstream is war, we must say it becomes peace. If it is 30 million to 40 million people in poverty, then we must say that mainstream must be transformed. If it’s drug abuse, we must say the mainstream is rotten and it must be turned inside and out.”

At the edge of the group, homeless Warren Allen said he still believes in King’s movement, despite his own poverty.

“The country is better off because of him and everyone who participates in human rights,” Allen said. “You’ve got more people coming together now than you had 20 years ago.”

Times staff writers Ann Wiener and Edward J. Boyer contributed to this article.