WASHINGTON, April 3: Congress marked the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death on Thursday with tributes by House and Senate leaders and words of remembrance by lawmakers who worked alongside the civil rights leader.

“Because of the leadership of this man we rose up out of fear and became willing to put our bodies on the line,” said Democratic Rep. John Lewis, a companion of King in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.

Also speaking at ceremonies in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall were Rep. Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the top members of the Democratic majority in the two chambers; and House and Senate Republican leaders Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Reid noted that after King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968, his body was not bestowed the honour of lying in the Capitol Rotunda. “Yet because our country dared to embrace his dream, his statue now stands there permanently, just steps from where we are.”Other speakers were Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, the second black lawmaker in history to become party whip, or third-ranking House member; Democratic Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, head of the 43-member Congressional Black Caucus; and King’s son, Martin Luther King III.—AP