WASHINGTON -- The Liberty Bell will be gently rung and 50 state replicas, along with church bells across the nation, will peal at noon Jan. 19 to celebrate the second annual Martin Luther King holiday.
Coretta Scott King announced the bell ringing Wednesday and said it will be done to symbolize the theme of the second observance of the holiday for the slain civil rights leader, 'Living the Dream: Let Freedom Ring.'
Mrs. King said the decision to ring Liberty Bell replicas -- the original will get just a gentle tap or two -- wasbased on the key paragraph in King's 'I Have a Dream' speech delivered in Washington in August 1963:
'When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: 'Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.''
Other holiday activities include beginning a collection for a King time capsule to be buried in 1988, a student 'Freedom Train' from New York to Atlanta and a worldwide radio tribute to the civil rights leader who was slain in 1968.
At a Capitol Hill news conference, Mrs. King said the second round of activities on the holiday are being held to preserve 'the continuity of the 1986 observance while moving to build upon its achievements and making the holiday still more substantive.'
Martin Luther King Day was celebrated as a federal holiday for the first time last year, capping a struggle that lasted more than 10 years by supporters of King to have his birthday declared a federal holiday.
Opponents had said it would cost the government too much money to set up a tenth federal non-working day, although most states already celebrated the civil rights leader's birthday, which is actually Jan. 15.
As the bells ring Jan. 19 at noon EST, a worldwide five-minute radio broadcast will begin, Mrs. King said, to be carried by domestic radio stations, the United States Information Agency and the Armed Forces Radio Network.
The Martin Luther King time capsule will be installed on Pennsylvania Avenue in January 1988. Intended for opening in 2088, the capsule will contain a laser recording of King's 'I Have a Dream Speech' and names of contributors who can pay $1 to have their name inscribed on a miniature Liberty Bell.
