Olivier Douliery - Abaca Press/MCT
People take pictures during the dedication ceremony at the Martin Luther King Memorial on the National Mall, Sunday, October 16, 2011, in Washington, D.C.
WASHINGTON -- In the midst of Sunday’s thronged celebration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., his daughter said the event marked his transformation from “being the most hated man in America in 1968 to be one of the most revered and honored men in the world.’’
The Rev. Bernice King joined President Barack Obama, a storied group of King’ civil rights contemporaries, and singers Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder in the dedication of the a memorial to the civil rights leader on the National Mall.
The ceremonies drew thousands of admirers, including a large group from the Triangle.
Speakers such as U.S. Rep. John Lewis, the Rev. Al Sharpton, the Rev. Joseph Lowery, poet Nikki Giovanni and others presented a composite portrait of King as more complex and sometimes more troubled than the almost saint-like figure who almost 50 years ago gave the iconic “I Have a Dream” speech from the Lincoln Memorial.
Sunday’s multimedia event sometimes seemed like a gospel service, music festival, political rally and academic symposium all in one.
“Even after rising to prominence, even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King was vilified by many, denounced as a rabble rouser and an agitator, a communist and a radical,” Obama said. “He was even attacked by his own people, by those who felt he was going too fast or those who felt he was going too slow; by those who felt he shouldn’t meddle in issues like the Vietnam War or the rights of union workers.
“We know from his own testimony the doubts and the pain this caused him, and that the controversy that would swirl around his actions would last until the fateful day he died.”
Nearly 50 years after the Aug. 28, 1963, civil rights March on Washington, King’s work is not yet complete, Obama said.
The Triangle group of 280 people who rode five buses to the event Saturday got caught up in the emotion and history of the day.
Like most attendees, they watched Obama and other speakers on large video screens as the dignitaries spoke to an invited crowd at the much smaller monument site nearby.
“I’m still trying to absorb it all,” said Ruby Turner of Raleigh, one of the Triangle trip organizers. “It’s a very emotional time.”
Early in the event speakers were already tying King’s legacy to the anti-corporate movement that began on Wall Street and has spread across the country.
“We are being pulled from the comfort place of ‘I have a dream,’ ” Bernice King said, recalling his increasing emphasis on economic issues as he neared the end of his life.
“I hear my father saying we must have a radical revolution of values,” she said. “We must radically begin to shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.”
Her father was killed by an assassin in 1968 while in Memphis to support striking garbage workers.
Newsman Dan Rather led off a series of speeches by civil rights leaders, legends in their own rights and close associates of King.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, joined U.S. Reps. Lewis and Lowery in telling rousing tales of King.
“Martin Luther King Jr. must be looked upon as one of the fathers of a new people,” Lowery said. “He not only freed a people, but he liberated a nation.
“He taught us to lay down the burden of hate when the burden of hate was too heavy to bear.”
Sharpton was one of the best received speakers by the crowd, warning Republicans not to attack entitlement programs under the guise of opposing the administration.
“When you mess with Social Security, this is not about Obama, this is about your mama,” Sharpton said.
Sunday afternoon, the Triangle contingent prepared for their second long bus ride in 48 hours.
Raleigh resident Cathy Rusher Gutierrez, 69, had recalled her trip to the 1963 March on Washington at which King gave his “Dream” speech.
Then a young resident of the Oberlin community, Gutierrez made the trek to Washington and left the historic event with a dedication to the movement that continues today.
“I had to do something; I had to become a responsible person,” she said. “I had to make a change.”
She encouraged Khalil Holland, 16, a Southeast Raleigh High School student, and others to tap into what appears to be a new attitude of resistance to persistent forces of racial and economic oppression.
“There are a lot of people out there that are fired up,” said Gutierrez, who retired as a career educator with the Defense Department. “All of us on the bus are making a statement.
“If we don’t protest, if we don’t speak out, what’s going to happen?”
Holland answered, softly: “It’s going to continue.”
With a 30-foot statue of King looming above him on Sunday, Obama also tried to urge further action in the face of difficulty.
“And so with our eyes on the horizon and our faith squarely placed in one another,” he said, “let us keep striving; let us keep struggling; let us keep climbing toward that promised land of a nation and a world that is more fair, and more just, and more equal for every single child of God.”
