Standing in front of a sculpture recovered from the World Trade Center, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s son and daughter prayed for world peace Sunday to mark the anniversary of their father's assassination.
"If we had taken heed to so much of what he was trying to tell us to do, there is no doubt in my mind that what happened on Sept. 11 would not have occurred," said Yolanda King, 46, the oldest of the slain civil rights leader's four children.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, flanked by Yolanda King and Martin Luther King III, led a prayer for peace in Battery Park, just blocks from ground zero. They sang "We Shall Overcome" in front of "The Sphere," a steel and bronze sculpture that once sat atop a fountain at the center of the trade center plaza.
King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. To recognize the 34th anniversary of her father's death, Yolanda King told the crowd of several dozen people that his message of peace and nonviolence is needed "now more than ever."