ATLANTA — The voice of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. again filled the halls of Ebenezer Baptist Church and a pipe organ triumphantly announced the reopening of the sacred sanctuary regarded as the birthplace of the civil rights icon’s vision of justice, equality and a nonviolent society.
The King family was joined by members of the civil rights movement and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in celebrating the reopening of Ebenezer, called the cornerstone of King’s legacy. Salazar said the church is “hallowed ground for a nation still very much in progress.”
“To be here this afternoon is to feel that history and remember our personal connection,” Salazar told the crowd gathered in the building, which was closed to visitors in 2007.
Ebenezer’s Heritage Sanctuary has been restored to its original appearance from 1960 to 1968, when King co-pastored there with his father. Work began on the $8 million project in 2000, and includes a return of the original pulpit furniture and furnishings, architectural and paint finishes, the baptismal pool and choir loft seating.
It also restored King’s most important title: preacher, said his youngest daughter, Bernice King, who delivered the keynote address at the ceremony.
King was born just blocks from Ebenezer on Auburn Avenue in downtown Atlanta, and grew up in the church. His father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. — known as “Daddy King” preached there and was a local civil rights activist. His grandfather, A.D. Williams, preceded him and also fought segregation during the early 20th century.
King is also buried next to the church, in a crypt alongside his widow, Coretta Scott King.
Ebenezer is the anchor of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, which welcomes more than 700,000 national and international visitors annually.
‘Three Cups of Tea’
inaccurate, report says
NEW YORK — A “60 Minutes” investigation alleges that the inspirational million-seller “Three Cups of Tea” is filled with inaccuracies and that co-author Greg Mortenson’s charitable organization has taken credit for building schools that don’t exist.
The report, which airs Sunday night on CBS television, cites “Into the Wild” author Jon Krakauer as among the doubters of Mortenson’s story of being lost in rural Pakistan and stumbling upon a mountain village, where the kindness of local residents inspired him to build a school.
The “60 Minutes” report alleges that numerous schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan that Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute is said to have founded either don’t exist or were built by others.
In a statement issued Friday through the institute, Mortenson defended the book he co-authored with David Oliver Relinhis, and his humanitarian work.
“I stand by the information conveyed in my book and by the value of CAI’s work in empowering local communities to build and operate schools that have educated more than 60,000 students. I continue to be heartened by the many messages of support I receive from our local partners in cities and villages across Afghanistan and Pakistan, who are determined not to let unjustified attacks stop the important work being done to create a better future for their children.”
“Three Cups of Tea” was released by Penguin in 2006. Spokeswoman Carolyn Coleburn declined comment, saying the publisher had not seen the “60 Minutes” story.
Lady Liberty stamp
shows wrong statue
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Post Office has made a huge mistake on a stamp honoring an icon of America, the Statue of Liberty.
It turns out that a first-class mail stamp featuring Miss Liberty is based on a photo of a replica of the statue at a Las Vegas, Nevada gambling casino.
Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts said 3 billion stamps have been printed, and they will not be pulled from the market. The 44-cent forever stamp has been on sale in coils since December and is to be released in booklet form.
The actual Statue of Liberty has appeared on more than 20 stamps previously, Betts said.
The mistake was first reported by Linn’s Stamp News.
In the Post Office’s news release in December announcing the stamp, the service said the Statue of Liberty was shown in a close-up photograph of her head and crown.
Linn’s, a weekly magazine for stamp collectors, noted that the stamp shows a rectangular patch on the crown of the statue. Such a patch does not appear on the statue in New York Harbor that has welcomed millions of immigrants to their new home.
In addition, the magazine said, the eyes, eyelids and eyebrows on the replica appeared more sharply defined than on the original statue, and the hair was different.
Group sues CIA to declassify
Bay of Pigs history
WASHINGTON — A research group is demanding that the CIA declassify its five-volume official history of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
The National Security Archive filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., just in time for the 50th anniversary of the failed attack.
CIA historian Jack Pfeiffer took nine years to compile the report. One volume of the report that was declassified sheds light on the role of then-Vice President Richard Nixon before the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Archive filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the rest of the history in 2005 and says the CIA has wrongfully withheld it.
The head of the Archive’s Cuba project, Peter Kornbluh, says 50 years is long enough for the rest of the history to be made public.
NASA releases data
from sky-mapping mission
LOS ANGELES — NASA has released a trove of data from its sky-mapping mission, allowing scientists and anyone with access to the Internet to peruse millions of galaxies, stars, asteroids and other hard-to-see objects
Many of the targets in the celestial catalog released online this week have been previously observed, but there are significant new discoveries. The mission’s finds include more than 33,000 new asteroids floating between Mars and Jupiter and 20 comets.
NASA launched the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which carried an infrared telescope, in December 2009 to scan the cosmos in finer detail than previous missions. The spacecraft, known as WISE, mapped the sky 1.5 times during its 14-month mission, snapping more than 2.5 million images from its polar orbit.
The spacecraft’s ability to detect heat glow helps it find dusty, cold and distant objects that are often invisible to regular telescopes.
The batch of images made available represents a little over half of what’s been observed in the all-sky survey. The full cosmic census is scheduled for release next spring.
For more information, visit http://wise2.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/release/prelim/index.html.