St. Augustine’s in Freeland to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

A community commemoration o the life and work of the late civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will be offered this month by St. Augustine’s in-the-Woods Episcopal Church in Freeland.

“Blessed Are the Peace Makers,” sponsored by St. Augustine Episcopal Peace Fellowship, will be at 1 p.m. Monday, Jan. 17 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day).

The event will be held at Trinity Lutheran Church in Freeland, due to construction at St. Augustine's. Trinity Lutheran is at 18341 Highway 525.

A light meal of sandwiches, vegetables, fruit, cookies and beverages will be offered beginning at noon.

Featured speaker will be the Rev. Carla Robinson, vicar of All Saints Episcopal Church in Seattle’s Rainier Valley district and a member of the African American Committee of the Diocese of Olympia.

There also will be an interactive reading of the prepared portion of King’s speech at the 1963 March on Washington. The prepared text is considered by many to be more substantive than the better-known “I Have a Dream” segment.

In this portion of his address, King dealt with poverty, nonviolence, segregation, sacrifice and civil rights. At St. Augustine’s, the text, read from the pulpit, will interact with readings from the pews by St. Augustine’s Episcopal Peace Fellowship members and St. Augustine youths.

Karl Olsen of Trinity Lutheran Church also will lead the audience in the singing of civil rights anthems and Afro-American spirituals.

King, a Baptist minister, was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African American civil rights movement. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president.

King’s efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

There, he expanded American values to include the vision of a color-blind society, and established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history.

In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and discrimination through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means.

He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn.

By the time of his death, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and stopping the Vietnam War.

He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a United States federal holiday in 1986.

For information about theSt. Augustine’s commemoration, call 331-4887.

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