Arizona Officials Attend King Tribute : Civil rights: The event is part of an effort to blunt criticism of voters’ rejection of a holiday honoring the slain leader.

More than 3,000 Arizona government officials, social activists and business leaders sat shoulder-to-shoulder Friday morning to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The King commemorative breakfast, sponsored by the Phoenix city government, was the largest event thus far in a monthlong series of concerts, seminars and marches designed to blunt the negative impact of Arizona voters’ recent rejection of a paid state holiday to honor the slain civil rights leader.

“If this is any indication of what people want, it tells me people want a King holiday to pass,” said Gov. Rose Mofford, whose state has lost more than $30 million in convention business in recent years and now stands to lose the 1993 Super Bowl as a result of the November referendum.

Breakfast sponsors noted that King--who once said that wars “are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows”--would again be in the minority today in a nation overwhelmingly supportive of President Bush’s use of military force against Iraq.

“He would be marching against the war,” said Rose S. Newsome, director of the Phoenix Equal Opportunity Department.

But King’s message of human dignity and equality, Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson said, transcends any single world event.

“At times, I think, Dr. King was an idealist. But we need idealists,” said Johnson, whose city has officially celebrated King Day for five years. “We need people who believe that there are peaceful resolutions as opposed to revolution.”

The blitz of public events across Arizona--one of only three states in the nation that does not celebrate a King Day holiday--is to end Monday with an annual march on the State Capitol, in which 20,000 people are expected to participate. King Day advocates say that the ranks could be swelled even further by anti-war demonstrators and others praying for a quick end to the war.

The King Day controversy has divided Arizona since 1986, when then Gov.-elect Evan Mecham, who was later impeached, announced he would rescind a paid state holiday enacted by his predecessor, Gov. Bruce Babbitt.

The furor markedly intensified last November when voters, faced with two rival holiday measures, voted, 50.5% to 49.4%, against adding an 11th paid state holiday and 3 to 1 against replacing Columbus Day with King Day.

State leaders contend that the vote reflected confusion and contrariness rather than majority opposition to the holiday. But the results led to a new round of convention cancellations, including the annual meeting of the National League of Cities.

In March, the National Football League will vote on a recommendation by Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to move the 1993 Super Bowl, worth an estimated $200 million in tourism, from Tempe.

Mofford, in her State of the State message last Monday, told the Legislature: “Arizona faces an historical crossroad. Is our state going to continue to be ridiculed, or are we going to do the right thing . . . to honor civil rights?”

On Friday, she predicted that in coming weeks, the Legislature will enact an interim King/Civil Rights holiday while also placing the matter on the 1992 ballot for voters to decide.