Vigil, Prayers Mark King Birthday

As Americans remembered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his 60th birthday anniversary with a candlelight vigil and prayers, his widow, Coretta Scott King, gave her annual “State of the Dream” address Sunday, calling the civil rights gains her late husband inspired “fragile” and warning that “much remains to be done.”

At Boston University’s School of Theology, where King received a doctorate degree in 1955, students and teachers gathered for a Sunday night candlelight vigil.

President-elect Bush, returning to Washington on Sunday from a three-day Florida fishing vacation, scheduled an address to a prayer breakfast at a Washington hotel today--a federal holiday recognized by every state except Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, South Dakota and New Hampshire.

King was killed by a sniper on April 4, 1968, while standing on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tenn. The assassin, James Earl Ray, was imprisoned for life.

In Selma, Ala., three blacks will be sworn in as members of the Dallas County Commission today. It was there that King began the historic 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march that resulted in passage of the Voting Rights Act.

The swearing-in of Erskine Minor, Perry Varner and D. L. Pope will end 112 years of white county rule and 10 years of legal battles to keep the commission white in a place where 55% of the residents are black. The three new commissioners were elected in special balloting last month.

Mrs. King, speaking at the packed Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King and his father shared the pulpit, said the ceremony was to honor “a courageous young dreamer who picked up the torch of freedom and carried it from Montgomery to Memphis with an unshakable faith in the promise of the American dream. Martin passed that torch to us to continue the pursuit of the dream.

” . . . Although the ‘white only’ signs of the 1950s and 1960s are gone,” she said, “segregated neighborhoods and schools remain a pervasive fact of American life.”

Play by Boston Students

The city of Boston was hosting a ceremony and a tribute to King, including a performance today of a play written by students titled “Dreams.” The play’s title was taken from King’s moving 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington.

An interfaith service was held in the nation’s capital at the Washington Hebrew Congregation to commemorate King’s birthday, and the civil rights leader was remembered in religious services throughout the country.

In Salt Lake City, the Mormon Church said it is closing its offices today to allow church employees to observe the holiday.

Boston University was holding religious services to commemorate King’s birthday and to mark today’s holiday.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, in a sermon Sunday at a church in New York’s poverty-stricken Harlem section, lashed out at those who set back King’s efforts by “self-destruction” through drugs and violence. “Dr. King was our gift from God. Martin Luther King did not fight and die for your right to use cocaine, crack and heroin,” said Jackson, who marched for civil rights with King.

Jackson will be in Atlanta today to deliver a sermon and help lead a parade. Tonight in Los Angeles, he will receive the SCLC Martin Luther King Award.