Biden: Americans should 'pay attention' to MLK's legacy

President Joe Biden attends a service honoring Martin Luther King Jr. at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., is at right. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Joe Biden made a historical pilgrimage Sunday to “America’s freedom church” to mark Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, saying democracy was at a perilous moment and that the civil rights leader’s life and legacy “show us the way and we should pay attention.”

As the first sitting president to deliver a Sunday morning sermon at King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, Biden cited the telling question that King himself once asked of the nation.

“He said, ‘Where do we go from here?’” Biden said from the pulpit. ”Well, my message to this nation on this day is we go forward, we go together, when we choose democracy over autocracy, a beloved community over chaos, when we choose believers and the dreams, to be doers, to be unafraid, always keeping the faith.”