ATLANTA (CNS) A bus full of pro-life advocates, including Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life and Alveda King, niece of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., prayed for an end to abortion near the historic King landmarks on Atlanta’s Auburn Avenue July 24. However, the peaceful demonstration did not occur exactly as anticipated, when National Parks Service officials escorted the group from the site, saying the pro-lifers did not have a needed permit. Meanwhile, a vocal group opposing the pro-life prayer service shouted at them throughout it.
The group of pro-life advocates had traveled from Birmingham, where the "freedom ride," sponsored by Priests for Life, began with a rally the night before.
More than 100 additional people, waiting patiently in the scorching sun, joined the group in Atlanta as the bus unloaded. Together they marched past the grave sites of Rev. King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, and crossed the street to a shaded area near the King Center.
Father Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, said the pro-life journey was planned to build on the spirit of the 1961 freedom rides of the civil rights movement.
In its 1960 decision Boynton v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregation in bus terminals and restaurants serving interstate travelers. The following year, more than a dozen people, both black and white, attempted to travel by bus from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans to test the enforcement of that momentous decision.
According to the Priests for Life website, the pro-life movement shares the civil rights vision of equal justice for all people based on the inherent dignity of every human life. The group asserts that both movements are movements of freedom.
"My Uncle Martin had a dream that Protestants and Catholics and gentiles and Jews would join together and sing the age-old spiritual ‘Free at Last,’" Alveda King states on the website. King is director of African-American outreach for Priests for Life.
As the silent group marched slowly to the King Center’s grounds, a vocal group of abortion advocates holding their own rally chanted at the pro-lifers, "Shame on you," "Trust black women" and "You are not King’s legacy."
As the pro-lifers gathered in front of the new Ebenezer Baptist Church, they began to sing "We Shall Overcome."
Then, in a moment of confusion for almost everyone involved, the National Parks Service escorted them off the King Center site, saying they were not able to hold their service on the grounds. Meanwhile those in the group favoring abortion were left alone and continued their chants.
Now huddled on a public sidewalk across the street from the King Center, the pro-lifers continued the service, alternating readings from Rev. King with Scripture passages.
A civil rights litany for justice and life, written by Father Pavone, included eight petitions that were read aloud by various people.
"Lord God, author of peace, you created all human beings that they might live as one, and you entrusted the life of each to the care of all," prayed one member. "We pray for peace in our times, a peace which is not simply the absence of bombs and tanks, but rather the full protection of everyone’s rights, and the harmonious relationships of human beings with each other and with you."
Asked why the group was escorted off the King Center grounds, some Parks Service officers said the group did not have a permit to gather there, while others said it was to keep the two groups from getting too close to one another and to avoid a confrontation.
According to the National Parks Service, the permit that was issued to Alveda King did not allow the group to gather on the property near the church.
Judy Forte, superintendent of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, said "the only permit that was issued to my knowledge that day was the permit I had given to Alveda King" for a group of 30 adults to gather for a reception in one of the National Parks Service buildings before a tour of the King Center.
The Birmingham-to-Atlanta freedom ride was a new initiative of Priests for Life. A concert and rally at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex July 23 and a demonstration outside Birmingham’s Planned Parenthood clinic, where abortions are performed, preceded the three-hour bus ride to Atlanta.
Father Pavone said the next pro-life freedom ride would begin in Knoxville, Tenn., in October and possibly include a stop in Chattanooga, one of the largest cities in the nation without a Planned Parenthood facility.