NEWTOWN, Conn. - - A former leader of one of the country's most prominent liberal Protestant churches has told residents of Newtown, Conn., weeks after the deadly school shooting there the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words "are needed now more than ever before."

The Rev. James A. Forbes Jr. was the first black minister to lead New York's historic Riverside Church. He spoke Sunday night at the Newtown Congregational Church in a service honoring King and the school shooting victims. About 300 people attended.

Forbes says the saddest face he ever saw on King was at the funeral of the four girls slain in Birmingham, Ala. He says he asks now as King did then, "Lord, what can come out of this that will honor those lost in this tragedy?"

Twenty first-graders and six school officials died in the Newtown shooting.