MLK Remembered at DOJ's Great Hall.

BLT:



Six days before the national holiday, hundreds of Justice Department employees gathered today to remember the

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and listen to one of his former associates recall the final hours before the civil rights leader's assassination in 1968.


As a warm-up to a keynote speech by the Rev. Samuel Kyles of Monumental Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn., several Justice Department officials paid tribute to King. And at least one of them used the podium to criticize the hiring practices at Main Justice.


"Even within these hollow walls, one race, one gender dominates," said Thomas Wright, an information technology specialist with the Office of the Solicitor General, in an opening prayer. "...It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same."


Wright was followed by Acting Deputy Attorney General Craig Morford, who remarked: "This is just like being in church."


Morford praised King as an inspiration and reminded the audience that they were the "beneficiaries and defenders of [King's] dream."


Grace Chung Becker, the acting assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division, said King's words and actions still resonate through the anti-discrimination work of the division's housing, voting, and employment offices. "Our work is not yet done," Chung Becker said.


Kyles, one of the last living eyewitnesses to King's shooting, then energized the 500 or so employees and visitors with his oratory. He and asked them to repeat "Amen, pastor" every time he took a sip from his water bottle. He then traced the roots of the civil rights movement and the days of slavery while invoking his personal journey alongside King in Memphis.


Kyles, who was arrested for sitting in the front of a Memphis bus, spoke of a garbage employees' grievance march to which King had lent his support.


"Pioneers are not around to walk the trails they blazed," he began before describing King's 'I've been to the mountain top' speech on April 3, 1968. "I'm so certain he knew he wouldn't get there."
At 5:45 p.m. the next day, Kyles said, he accompanied King onto the balcony of the motel where King greeted a throng of supporters on the ground below. A few minutes later, a shot rang out.


"You can kill the dreamer, but you can't kill the dream. It is still alive. Hallelujah! Halleluhah! Hallelujah!" he said to a standing ovation.

It is easy to remember MLK birthday once a year but implying Dr. King's dream and understanding what he stood for on a everyday basis are more important.