U.S. Congress honors Martin Luther King Jr.

(AP) Congress marked the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death Thursday with tributes by House and Senate leaders and words of remembrance by lawmakers who once worked alongside the civil rights leader.
The ceremonies were held as a pair of polls showed the public with racially divided views about the state of race relations today.
“Because of the leadership of this man we rose up out of fear and became willing to put our bodies on the line,” said Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a companion of King in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.
Also speaking at ceremonies in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall were Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House and Senate Republican leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.
Reid noted that after King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968, his body was not bestowed the honor of lying in the Capitol Rotunda. “Yet because our country dared to embrace his dream, his statue now stands there permanently, just steps from where we are.”
Other speakers were Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the second black lawmaker in history to become a party whip; Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., head of the 43-member Congressional Black Caucus, and King’s son, Martin Luther King III.
A poll by CBS News and the New York Times showed 55 percent think race relations in the U.S. are basically good, a more optimistic view than the poll has shown in two decades. While 57 percent of whites held that opinion, just 42 percent of blacks felt that way.
In addition, about six in 10 blacks said they think Barack Obama’s Democratic presidential campaign has brought people together while only one in four whites agree.
Separately, only about a third of whites and blacks think King’s “I Have a Dream” speech has been fulfilled, according to a poll by CNN/Essence Magazine/Opinion Research Corp. Most blacks but few whites said King influenced them a great deal.
In that same poll, most whites and slightly fewer blacks said they think the U.S. is ready for a black president.