[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 4 (Monday, January 28, 2002)]
[Pages 94-96]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday Celebration

January 21, 2002

    Well, thank you all very much for coming. Mrs. King, thanks for this 
beautiful portrait. I can't wait to hang it. [Laughter]
    I want to welcome you all to the White House. We've gathered in 
tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to the ideals he held and the 
life he lived. We remember a man who brought much good into the world by 
the power of his voice and the truth of his words.
    For some of you here this afternoon, Dr. King was and is a special 
part of your life as a colleague and a friend and a brother. Four call 
him ``Dad,'' and we are pleased that two of his children are here with 
us today.

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We welcome Bernice and Martin Luther King III. I know your dad would be 
incredibly proud of you. I also welcome Christine King Farris, Dr. 
King's sister. Alveda King, Isaac Farris, Jr., Arthur Bagley, and Arturo 
Bagley, family members, are here as well. Thank you all for coming. And 
of course, we're honored to be in the presence of such a distinguished 
and delightful lady, Coretta Scott King.
    I appreciate Secretary Rod Paige for being here. In honor of Dr. 
King, the Department of Education will soon announce the Martin Luther 
King, Jr., scholars program to promising students all across America.
    I appreciate all the members of my team who are here, in particular, 
Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser. Thank you for coming, 
Condi. It's good to see the Mayor. Mr. Mayor and the first lady, Diane, 
are with us today. Thank you all for coming. The Mayor is a good man. I 
can assure you, Mr. Mayor, we paid our property taxes. [Laughter]
    I appreciate so many members of the diplomatic corps for being here. 
Ambassadors from all across the world are here to say hello to Mrs. King 
and her family. And thank you all for coming to pay honor to such a 
great American. Thank you very much.
    On a summer night in 1964, right here in the East Room, President 
Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and handed a pen to 
Martin Luther King, Jr. The law marked a true turning point in the life 
of our country. As Dr. King put it, ``The Civil Rights Act was the end 
of a century of slumber.'' More laws would be needed, and more would 
follow. But on that day, our Federal Government accepted the duty of 
securing freedom and justice for every American.
    Standing in the White House, marking a national holiday in Dr. 
King's memory, we are now two generations and a world away from 
Montgomery, Selma, and Birmingham, as he knew them. It would be easy to 
forget the great obstacles he overcame and the years of effort and the 
daily courage that turned a cause into a movement. Perhaps without 
Martin Luther King, there might still have been a Civil Rights Act. 
There's no doubting that the law came as it did, when it did, because of 
him.
    Yet, he was not one to claim credit for himself. The civil rights 
law, he said, was first written in the streets by many thousands of 
black citizens and others who shared their goals. Their movement rose 
from generations of bitter experience, the slights, the cruelties, the 
pervasive wrongs that marked the lives of many black Americans.
    As a small boy, Martin had seen his father, a gifted and learned 
man, retain great dignity while being insulted, ordered about, and 
spoken down to. ``I don't care how long I have to live with this 
system,'' said Martin Luther King, Sr., ``I will never accept it.'' The 
son would not accept it either. Years afterwards, he related the story 
of going to the back of the bus, day after day, putting his mind up in 
the front seat. He told himself, ``One of these days I'm going to put my 
body where my mind is.''
    In time, he did so, as did others, some of whose names are also 
honored in our history. Along the way, he was beaten and stabbed, 
jailed, and came close to losing his wife and baby daughter when their 
house was bombed. At a certain point, even a strong man might have 
yielded. Dr. King never did, and he never gave up on his country. He 
believed that whatever one would change, one must first love--and he 
loved America.
    His most powerful arguments were unanswerable, for they were the 
very words and principles of our Declaration and Constitution. When he 
came to this Capital City and stood before the figure of the Great 
Emancipator, it was not to assail or threaten. He had come to hold this 
Nation to its own standards, to live out the true meaning of its creed.
    We see Martin Luther King in many ways. Perhaps, above all, we 
should see him as a minister of the gospel. He said, ``I decided early 
to give my life to something eternal and absolute, not to these little 
gods that are here today and gone tomorrow but to God, who is the same 
yesterday, today, and forever.''
    That faith gave Dr. King the grace to forgive and the strength to 
love. He refused to answer hatred with hatred or meet violence with 
violence. He appealed not to resentment but to reason, not to anger but 
to conscience. He was on this Earth just 39 years. On the last night of 
his life, he did seem

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to sense that grave danger was lying in wait. But he trusted in the ways 
of providence, not fearing any man, certain that no man could ever 
finally prevent the purposes of Almighty God.
    ``Here on all the roads of life,'' said Dr. King in a sermon, ``God 
is striving in our striving. As we struggle to defeat the forces of 
evil, the God of the universe struggles with us. Evil dies on the 
seashore, not merely because of man's endless struggle against it but 
because of God's power to defeat it.'' Martin Luther King, Jr., lived in 
that belief and died in that belief.
    Some figures in history, renowned in their day, grow smaller with 
the passing of time. The man from Atlanta, Georgia, only grows larger 
with the years. America is a better place because he was here, and we 
will honor his name forever.
    It is now my honor to sign the proclamation.

Note: The President spoke at 4:12 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Coretta Scott King, widow of 
Martin Luther King, Jr.; and their children Bernice King and Martin 
Luther King III; Alveda King and Isaac Farris, Jr., niece and nephew of 
Dr. King; and Mayor Anthony A. Williams of the District of Columbia and 
his wife, Diane.