Echoes of Strife Haunt U.S. on King’s Birthday

Church bells across the country tolled the loss of Martin Luther King Jr. today as echoes of the racial conflicts the slain civil rights leader struggled to overcome continued to haunt the nation.

In Atlanta, worshipers at King’s church were urged on the slain civil rights leader’s birthday to keep alive his memory and his philosophy of nonviolence.

“This is a man who is a deep current in our memory,” said the Rev. Cecil Williams, pastor of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco. “Let us live then not only his dream, but let us live the practice of nonviolence and unconditional love.”

Williams spoke at the annual ecumenical service at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Church services, parades and other celebrations were held nationwide during the weekend before the federal holiday, which for the first time falls on the slain civil-rights leader’s actual birthday.

He would have been 61 today.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Tom Bradley observed the holiday today by ringing the City Hall bell three times.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, meanwhile, demonstrated at the downtown headquarters of Security Pacific Bank to protest the bank’s decision to stay open on the federal holiday.

Also planned today in Atlanta was a “March of Celebration” parade, being televised nationally for the first time.

This year’s holiday follows a series of bombings and threats, apparently racially motivated, in the Southeast, and a flare-up of racial tensions in Boston after an apparent hoax in which a white man had claimed that a black mugger fatally shot his pregnant wife.

It also comes at a time of gains for blacks--the election of David N. Dinkins, first black mayor of New York City, and the nation’s first elected black governor, L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia.

“Today, the sound of liberty is being heard all around the world,” said James Farmer, founder of the Congress for Racial Equality, as he pounded three times with his fist on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. “Those who have been denied liberty love it most. Dr. King loved liberty and he fought and died for it.”

The New York Stock Exchange held a moment of silence at noon.

In Arizona, one of just four states without some form of King holiday, thousands marched in Phoenix and Tucson today to honor King. A racially mixed crowd carried black balloons along a four-mile stretch of downtown Phoenix as they headed for a rally at the Capitol.