Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. died because he dared to challenge white America to fulfill the ideals of democracy, Rabbi Jacob Rothschild said Sunday at an ecumenical memorial service at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Philip.

“He died because he dared to confront a people professing belief in the teachings of the prophets of old and the preachings of him who is the Christian Messiah with their failure to make the religion they professed real in their lives,” Rabbi Rothschild, spiritual leader of the Temple, told a large audience.

The Rabbi said equality for all men was Dr. King’s dream. “He sought its fulfillment with all his brilliant mind, courageous heart and dedicated spirit. It is a strange anomaly that this man so dedicated to the way of peace should have engendered so violent a response.”

“The crowning contradiction is that he who would live by the olive wreath should be destroyed by the sword.”

Rabbi Rothschild said the future presents two challenges -- each growing from the life and purpose of a great and noble man.

“He sought not the separation of man but the oneness of all humanity. That his death may now become a source of greater divisiveness between the races is unthinkable.” “He preached and taught and lived non-violence. We can understand the impotent rage, the sense of outrage that gripped the Negro community at the news of this senseless, inhuman slaughter.”

“We can understand its need to strike out in fury to wound, to avenge, to destroy. But that would not have been his way. His only fitting memorial must be an even firmer dedication to his teachings and a greater determination to achieve a united America which will offer justice and dignity for all of its citizens.”

Rabbi Rothschild said white America also faces a challenge. “White America is run through with racism. It clings with determined desperation to all the old shibboleths of entrenched white privilege and superiority.”

“It stubbornly refuses to hear the voices of those crying out against injustice and inequity and human degradation. It moves only when confronted by the threat of violence or violence itself.” “It passes laws and ignores them; gives promises and disregards them; makes pledges and fails to redeem them. It has long since made it clear that it intends to pay mere lip service to the religious ideals and democratic principles it pretends to espouse.” Rabbi Rothschild said America, at long last, must begin changing not the laws of America, but the hearts of Americans.

“Do we reject that potential apartheid that threatens to take over our land? Then we must be willing to admit the Negro into the structure of our white society. Do we deplore violence? Then we must be willing to remove the cause of violence - the frustration, the denied hopes, the unfulfilled dreams that he has nurtured in so many hearts. ‘I have a dream’ once cried Martin Luther King. Now that dream is dying in too many souls. And it will continue to grow ever more dim until we dream the same dream -- and set about making it a waking reality.”

Bishop Joseph L. Bernardin, administrator of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, gave the memorial prayer at the service. The opening sentences were read by Bishop Milton L. Wood, suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta; the psalm by Dr. Harmon Moore, executive director of the Christian Council of Metropolitan Atlanta. The lessons were read by Adolphus Dickerson, pastor of Central Methodist Church and Dr. Bevel Jones, president of the Christian Council. Episcopal Bishop Randolph R. Claiborne, Jr. gave the benediction.