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President Obama Pays Tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.

     18 January 2010
   President  Barack  Obama  hugs his daughter Malia Obama, as they serve
   lunch to people at So Others Might Eat in Washington, 18 Jan 2010

Photo: AP

   President  Barack  Obama  hugs his daughter Malia Obama, as they serve
   lunch to people at So Others Might Eat in Washington, 18 Jan 2010

   U.S.  President  Barack  Obama  has marked the holiday for slain civil
   rights  leader  Martin  Luther King Jr. with an unannounced visit to a
   relief organization providing support to earthquake victims in Haiti.
   The  president  and  his  wife,  Michelle  Obama, stopped Monday at an
   American  Red  Cross center in Washington, where the president thanked
   workers for their efforts.
   Earlier,   Mr.   Obama  and  his  family  visited  a  social  services
   organization  (So  Others  Might  Eat), where they served lunch to the
   needy.   The  president,  his wife, the couple's two daughters and the
   children's  grandmother  also  greeted  staff  members  and  about 150
   residents as they ate.
   Mr.  Obama  also  hosted  a  White House meeting with African-American
   senior  citizens and their grandchildren about the legacy of the civil
   rights  movement.   He  speaks  later  at a concert celebrating King's
   legacy.
   King  was  a Baptist preacher who fought against discrimination in the
   1950s and 1960s in the southern United States.
   He  gained  prominence  after  leading  a  successful  protest against
   segregation  on the Montgomery, Alabama bus system.  In 1964, the U.S.
   passed the landmark Civil Rights Act to make segregation illegal.
   King won the Nobel Peace Prize that same year.  He was assassinated on
   April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.
   Americans  celebrate  King's  memory on the third Monday of January by
   volunteering  to  help  others.  In one activity, about 180 volunteers
   representing   several   organizations   painted   the  walls  of  the
   Ferebee-Hope  elementary school in southeast Washington.  The activity
   was  designed  to  try  to  create  a  brighter  and  more stimulating
   environment for students at the school.
   City  authorities refurbished the school in the middle of last year by
   adding  walls to floors that previously contained open space, but they
   left  the  new walls white.  Principal Sharron Stroman told VOA she is
   grateful to local groups who volunteered to paint the walls.

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