One day before a turning point in the nation’s history, many local people gathered at First Lutheran Church to celebrate a famous civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr.

“I feel it is a good way to promote caring and respect and getting rid of discrimination in our communities,” said Dennis Dieser of the Albert Lea Family Y, who served as master of ceremonies. “It seems like there is always a piece of it, and the more we can do to alleviate it and help everybody feel they have equal rights and a right to belong, it’ll enhance the community and raise it to a new level.”

He and others participated in the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast, which started at 7 a.m.

King was a preacher who led the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and called for equal rights of all men and women, regardless of the shade of their skin. With the inauguration of Barack Obama today as the first African-American president, many feel it is a step forward but added there is more to do.

How would King react to Obama’s election?

“I think he’d have a mixture of pride in a person of integrity,” said Toby Thompson, a retired doctor and a Freeborn County Paths to Peace member. “I think he would give a sense that we’re not there yet, and that we’re wrong to say that what’s happening in the electoral process indicates we’ve made it as a culture, as a nation, or as a people. There is just too much disrespect and hate.”

Following the food, music, a scholarship presentation and reading of children’s poems, Kim Nelson of The Children’s Center presented Operation Respect and the Don’t Laugh At Me program. She and Dieser and others were trained in the program. While its use is widespread in schools, Albert Lea is the first-known attempt at a citywide implementation of the program. It promotes the infusion of character education and social and emotional learning principles into school curricula.

Dieser said that the main goal of the one-year program is to get people thinking about how they interact and react with other people. He said it teaches people to worry about themselves and how they treat others. When other people do things they don’t like or don’t care for, they might not be able to change them, but by acting the right way they can change others.

The Operation Respect Ambassadors hope to hold a big event in the spring where Peter Yarrow, of the famed musical trio Peter, Paul and Mary and one of the founders of the program, would speak to schools and businesses.

“I think it’s a good idea, but it shouldn’t just be a program,” Thompson said. “It should be something that they recommend to be instilled in our consciences.”