Leaders Remember Rev. King's Message

Monday, January 15th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

ATLANTA (AP) â€” Andrew Young celebrated Martin Luther King Day on Monday by urging Americans to put the divisiveness of the election behind them and accept George W. Bush as their president. He also urged Bush to avoid his party's ``polarizing instincts.''

``As much and as hard as I worked to support Al Gore and to continue the tradition of Bill Clinton, it's time for us to realize that George Walker Bush is our president, or will be our president next week,'' Young, the former King aide who became Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador, told an audience of whites and blacks at King's former pulpit, Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Elsewhere around the country, King's birthday was celebrated with marches, speeches and community service projects. President Clinton helped Americorps workers paint a senior center in Washington. In Virginia, it was the first time King Day was observed separately from a day honoring Confederate generals.

Dozens of out-of-town visitors filled the pews of Ebenezer Baptist, including Jocolby Harrell, 18, of Raleigh, N.C., who said his family has been coming to Atlanta for the observance since he was a child.

``Thank God for King. King paved the way for black people to have the same chances to go to college and pursue their dreams,'' Harrell said.

In his keynote speech at the annual King Day service at Ebenezer Baptist, Young said Bush must ``follow the instincts of his mother and be a loving, uniting factor'' rather than following ``the polarizing instincts of his party.''

In particular, Young cited Bush's nomination of John Ashcroft, the Missouri senator who opposes affirmative action, to be attorney general.

``I know John Ashcroft,'' he said. ``He really is a nice guy. ... He just isn't supposed to be attorney general at a time like this.''

In Houston, Bush, who won a dismal 5 percent of black votes in his home state and one in nine nationwide, promised wary black Americans: ``My job will be to listen not only to the successful, but also to the suffering.''

``I will remember the promise etched in this day,'' the president-elect said at a mostly black and Hispanic elementary school. ``Dr. King's dream placed demands on each of us.''

Clinton followed the painting project with his own call for unity.

``If I could leave America with one wish as I depart office, it would be that we become more the `one America' that we know we ought to be,'' Clinton said in a speech at the University of the District of Columbia.

King Day community service projects around Philadelphia drew more than 25,000 volunteers, organizers said. Among them was 14-year-old Marlena Jarmon, who helped paint the cafeteria at Strawberry Mansion High School.

``I wonder what this world would be like with him still here,'' Marlena said. ``I don't think there would be so much hatred.''

On the day King would have turned 72, his widow, Coretta Scott King, asked Americans to keep her husband's ``vibrant spirit of unconditional love'' alive by working for peace, justice and economic equality.

The civil rights leader's eldest son, Martin Luther King III, pretended to ring the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

``When I symbolically rang that bell, the first thing I thought about in terms of liberty and freedom and justice is that we haven't achieved it yet,'' he said. ``But we can make it happen.''

Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore addressed thousands of people in Richmond on their state's first stand-alone King Day. ``This is a celebration, so let's celebrate!'' he shouted.

Until this year, Virginia had combined the federal King holiday with a state observance for Civil War Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. They are now honored on the Friday before King Day, giving state employees a four-day weekend.

``All three were great men,'' said Jeb Stuart IV, president of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond and great-grandson of the Civil War general.

Elsewhere:

â€”About 1,000 people rallied in Columbia, S.C., to oppose the flying of the Confederate flag on the grounds of the Statehouse. Although the flag has been removed from the Statehouse dome, it still overshadowed South Carolina's first celebration of a regular King Day holiday for state workers. ``That flag is one of those symbols that divides us,'' NAACP official Dwight James said.

â€” In Denver, hundreds of people hugged strangers and held hands and marched through the city. ``Dr. King's dream is alive,'' said Michael Hancock, president of the Denver Urban League. ``Let's show all America today what lives not only in our eyes but lies within in our hearts.''