Activism through service

“He showed us the path,’’ said Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general, who paid tribute to King as an inspiring figure who “fought for the dignity of every human being.’’

Coakley joined some 1,000 people at the city’s 41st annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast at the Boston Convention Center, the country’s oldest such event. King was assassinated in 1968 at age 39.

On the 25th anniversary of the first national King holiday, celebrations and volunteer projects were held across the region, with the recent shootings in Arizona a solemn backdrop. At the King breakfast, a moment of silence was observed for the victims.

Many marked the day with tributes to King’s message of service. At Brandeis University, members of Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries, an interfaith religious organization, fanned out to area shelters to spend time building what King once called a “beloved community.’’

“In the face of loss and division, on this day we are one,’’ said Alexander Levering Kern, who directs Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries.

In Jamaica Plain, hundreds of volunteers crowded into the cafeteria at the Curley K-8 School for a day of service, busily making everything from wooden benches for grade-schoolers to scarves for the homeless. Becky Shuster and her 6-year-old daughter, Sage Shuster-Wright, decorated square pieces of fabric for child-size quilts for low-income families.

“I want my daughter to understand the full legacy that Dr. King left us — the importance of caring for human beings no matter what their race or circumstance,’’ Shuster said as her daughter drew hearts on the blue material, which her mother had adorned with the message “Racism will End.’’

On the other side of the room, Hilda Fowlkes of Holbrook and her 10-year-old son, Khyle Woods, were taking part in what has become a King Day tradition for the family. Young Khyle came up with the idea, his mother said, to spend the day helping others.

“It’s important,’’ he said as he made picture frames from colored Popsicle sticks, feathers, and glitter. “And I feel bad for the people in the winter who have to sleep in the cold, and they don’t have anything to eat.’’

Across the city in Faneuil Hall, poet Nikki Giovanni told the story of the arrest of Rosa Parks — among the most defining moments of the civil rights movement — to a crowd of more than 800. Parks was not simply a seamstress who was too tired to give up her seat on a bus, she said, but a black woman exhausted by the indignity of life in the Jim Crow South.

“Everybody on God’s green earth had tired feet,’’ Giovanni said. “If you think tired feet could start a revolution, we’d all be free.’’

At Boston’s King breakfast, keynote speaker Melissa Harris-Perry drew parallels between today’s divisive political climate and the tumult of 1967, the year of King’s final book, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?’’

“We have a right, and a responsibility, to choose community,’’ Harris-Perry, a Princeton University professor of politics and African American Studies, said to strong applause. “We can do it. We must do it.’’

Harris-Perry noted that King wrote his book after the passage of two pieces of landmark legislation — the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Hopes for further gains were high, but advancement proved hard-won amid fierce resistance, disillusioning supporters of racial equality.

The historic 2008 election of President Obama, she said, sparked similar resistance, as well as disappointment.

“It was a period of backlash,’’ she said, referring to 1967. “We were told it was all moving too fast.’’

“I see critical parallels between 1967 and 2011,’’ she told the crowd, which included black leaders and activists from Boston and across the region.

Following the shootings in Arizona, Americans again face a choice between chaos and community, she said.

“We have a choice to grasp onto the story of Dr. King and make it our own,’’ she said.

In earlier remarks at the breakfast, US Senator Scott Brown praised King as a visionary who fought courageously for justice and inspired the best in people.

“He wanted us to be better,’’ he said, adding that politicians and the general public need to set aside partisan differences for “what’s best for our state and country.’’

“We’re all just people,’’ Brown said. “I wish we could just do the right thing and get along.’’

Akilah Johnson can be reached at ajohnson@globe.com. Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com.