Past participle as Adj or verb

Hi All
I teach a basic grammar class for college freshmen, and the text that I'm using identifies the following sentence as a Subject + LV+ Subject complement.       

       
                Martin Luther Kind Jr. was widely admired.

To me "was admired" looks like a passive verb phrase similar to the following:

                The children were frightened by the monster.

Can someone help me with what I'm missing here?
Thanks
Carol


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