‘Create the beloved community’: MLK Jr. Day tribute in Portsmouth

PORTSMOUTH — Quotes and images of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lined the inside of South Church Monday, which would have been the civil rights trailblazer’s 95th birthday, to honor of his life and legacy. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was marked at the historic downtown church with congregants and Seacoast citizens listening to readings of select speeches from King, hymns, and remarks from local and state political leaders. The remembrance was held only a few streets away from The Pearl, New Hampshire’s first Black-owned church and the site where King delivered a sermon in October 1952, when he was a divinity student at Boston University. The South Church tribute from the Seacoast NAACP was preceded by a volunteer-led pancake…