UPDATE 3:52 p.m.: I updated this article with pictures from the ceremony at the State Capitol Complex.

By Steven Allen Adams | West Virginia Watchdog

CHARLESTON — Lawmakers will have to work today, but
before they do they took time to commemorate the life of one of the
nation’s great men.

Today, members of the Legislature, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, U.S. Sen. Joe
Manchin, and other state officials marked Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. A
ecumenical service was held at Asbury United Methodist Church in
Charleston, W.Va.

The event is sponsored annually by the Martin Luther King, Jr. West Virginia Holiday Commission, West Virginia State University, and the West Virginia Division of Culture and History.

Lawmakers and the public were lead in songs and prayers in many different faiths – Christian, Jewish, and Muslim. The Appalachian Children’s Chorus sang several spiritual selections, and Gov. Tomblin and Sen. Manchin gave remarks. The keynote speaker was Reverend Melvin Cooper of Charleston’s Unitarian Universal Congregation.

The attendees then marched from the church to the Liberty Bell on the
north side of the State Capitol Complex, where the crowd heard remarks
from state Supreme Court Justice Thomas McHugh, Senate President Jeff
Kessler, House Speaker Rick Thompson, as well as from Manchin and
Tomblin.

It’s a fitting ceremony to remember Rev. King, who won
the Nobel Prize for his work promoting racial equality, and using
nonviolent protest to do so: