Americans Told to Make King’s Dream Reality

Civil rights leaders, politicians and preachers called on Americans to make today’s third national commemoration of Martin Luther King’s birthday the dawn of a renewed struggle against intolerance of all kinds.

Thousands marched through flooded streets in downtown Phoenix to demand that the state holiday be restored. As one of his first official acts in office last year, and the first of many that prompted a campaign to drive him from office, Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham repealed the holiday.

In Atlanta, where King is buried, Ebenezer Baptist Church was filled with the music of local choirs and the oratory of dignitaries. With his father, King was pastor of the church until his April 4, 1968, assassination in Memphis. King, born Jan. 15, 1928, would have been 59 last Friday.

‘Our General of Peace’

King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, and her four children sat in the church’s brightly lit sanctuary and heard Dr. Joseph Roberts Jr., the pastor, call the slain leader “our general of peace.”

“We know that the war is not over. We know that we have a long way to go,” he said, referring to racial strife in New York’s Howard Beach community and racist incidents in Georgia’s mostly white Forsyth County, scene of a weekend civil rights march.

Roberts also spoke of Rosa Parks, the Montgomery, Ala., woman who defied racial segregation laws Dec. 1, 1955, by refusing to give up a bus seat for a white man. Parks was in Philadelphia today to chime the first clarion in a bell-ringing that spread across the 50 states and overseas.

Forty-three states participate in the national holiday, the third since a divided Congress declared King’s life worthy of the recognition given before only to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Hawaii and New Hampshire do not recognize the holiday.

March in Phoenix

A crowd of thousands walked through flooded streets in Phoenix today to the steps of the state Capitol to “make the dream come true” and demand restoration of the holiday.

“We will today reintroduce the King Holiday Bill,” state House Democratic leader Art Hamilton told a cheering crowd huddled against gusty winds.

President Reagan, who opposed establishment of the holiday but signed the bill once Congress passed it, was at Camp David with his wife, Nancy. Last week, he tape-recorded messages commemorating the holiday.