Martin Luther King Jr. To Be Honored at Atlanta Church

Hundreds are expected to pack the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s home church in Atlanta on Monday to mark the federal holiday for the slain civil rights leader, amid political and racial rancor as the a president-elect who has spewed racist and bigoted rhetoric prepares to take office.

Political commentary is a frequent feature of the service at Ebenezer Baptist Church where King preached. He was assassinated in 1968 at age 39.

The commemoration of King, who would have turned 88 on Sunday, comes on the heels of Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s inflammatory remarks about civil rights champion John Lewis, a Democratic U.S. congressman who marched with King in the 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Alabama, and was beaten by police.

Lewis had said in an NBC “Meet the Press” segment he does not see Trump as a “legitimate president,” referencing alleged Russian interference.

Trump won the presidency with less support from Black and Latino voters than any president in the past 40 years, only 8 percent and 28 percent, respectively, polling data showed.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is scheduled to speak, along with King's youngest child, Bernice King, and a host of other speakers.