A capacity crowd filled the pews and hallways of Ebenezer Baptist Church on Monday, Jan. 15 for the anniversary birthday celebration of what would have been slain civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.’s 95th birthday. Hundreds more local residents and tourists from around the world strolled the church campus and visited King’s original church home where he delivered some of his most prolific and famous sermons located adjacent to the burial sites of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King on Auburn Avenue.
The occasion marked the 56th annual observance of Dr. King’s birthday and its 39th year as a federal holiday which is celebrated on the third Monday of January to honor the life and legacy of Dr. King. Led by King’s oldest daughter, Dr. Bernice King, president and CEO of the King Center for Nonviolence and Social, the 2023 celebration themed “It Starts With Me” focused the eyes of the nation on the civil rights struggle past and present and shifting the cultural climate through the practice of Kingian nonviolence. “I come before you today not just the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King, but as the daughter of a king,” she began. “This is an urgent time. These are very strange and peculiar times. … I am concerned about our children and all my brothers and sisters in our world house who are denied living healthy and prosperous lives due to oppressing regimes,” she continued.
Sen. Raphael Warnock, the current senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist who went from the pulpit to politics with his 2020 win to become Georgia’s first Black senator elected to the U.S. Congress, also spoke passionately about the need to extinguish the culture of hatred evident in the halls of Congress and permeating the nation.
“[Dr. King’s] voice summons us together when there are forces at work in our country trying to tear us apart. They are trying to tear us apart because people who have no vision traffic…
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