Biden says Americans should 'pay attention' to Martin Luther King's legacy

President Joe Biden made a historical pilgrimage to America's freedom church to mark Martin Luther King's birthday, saying democracy was at a perilous moment and that the civil rights leader's life and legacy "show us the way and we should pay attention.

As the first sitting president to deliver a sermon at King's Ebenezer Baptist Church, Biden cited the telling question that King himself once asked of the nation.

He said, 'Where do we go from here?' Biden said from the pulpit. Well, my message to this nation on this day is we go forward, we go together, when we choose democracy over autocracy, a beloved community over chaos, when we choose believers and the dreams, to be doers, to be unafraid, always keeping the faith.

In a divided country only two years removed from a violent insurrection, the battle for the soul of this nation is perennial. It's a constant struggle ... between hope and fear, kindness and cruelty, justice and injustice, Biden told congregants, elected officials and dignitaries.

He spoke out against those who traffic in racism, extremism, insurrection and said the struggle to protect democracy was playing out in courthouses and ballot boxes, protests and other avenues.

The White House has tried to promote Biden's agenda in minority communities. 

King, who was born on Jan. 15, 1929, was killed at age 39. He helped fuel passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.