MLK III: AZ shootings underscore father's message

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110116/ap_on_re_us/us_king_center_awards

One of the sons of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. said Saturday evening that the Arizona shootings that claimed six lives and left a congresswoman critically wounded show his father's work must continue.

"Ugliness rears its head," Martin Luther King III told a dinner gathering hosted by the King Center. "And that tragic incident in a real sense should say to us all that the work of Martin Luther King Jr. is nowhere near finished because he tried to teach us how to live in a nation and world without destroying either person or property."

"And so the message of nonviolence resonates strongly, particularly this year after that great tragedy," King said.

King III spoke at a King Center tribute to the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, honoring his work on civil rights. A posthumous award was presented to the senator's widow, Vicki Kennedy. The senator died at age 77 in 2009, after battling brain cancer.