King Ceremony Strikes a Note of Conciliation

Andrew Young celebrated Martin Luther King Day on Monday by urging Americans to put the divisiveness of the election behind them and accept George W. Bush as their president. He also urged Bush to avoid his party’s “polarizing instincts.”

“As much and as hard as I worked to support Al Gore and to continue the tradition of Bill Clinton, it’s time for us to realize that George Walker Bush is our president, or will be our president next week,” Young, the former King aide who became Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador, told an audience of whites and blacks at King’s former pulpit, Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Dozens of out-of-town visitors filled the pews of Ebenezer Baptist, including Jocolby Harrell, 18, of Raleigh, N.C., who said his family has been coming to Atlanta for the observance since he was a child.

“Thank God for King. King paved the way for black people to have the same chances to go to college and pursue their dreams,” he said.

In his keynote speech at the annual King Day service at Ebenezer Baptist, Young said Bush must “follow the instincts of his mother and be a loving, uniting factor” rather than following “the polarizing instincts of his party.”

Elsewhere around the country, King’s birthday was celebrated with marches, speeches and community service projects. President Clinton helped AmeriCorps workers paint a senior center in Washington. In Virginia, it was the first time King Day was observed separately from a day honoring Confederate generals.

Clinton followed the painting project with his own call for unity.

“If I could leave America with one wish as I depart office, it would be that we become more the ‘one America’ that we know we ought to be,” Clinton said at the University of the District of Columbia.

On the day King would have turned 72, his widow, Coretta Scott King, asked Americans to keep her husband’s “vibrant spirit of unconditional love” alive by working for peace, justice and economic equality.