US remembers Martin Luther King Jr

MEMPHIS: Americans on Wednesday marked 50 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, a day seared into the national consciousness that transformed the civil rights leader into a symbol of the fight for racial equality. In a country still torn over issues of race and class demonstrators rallied in Memphis, Tennessee where the pastor and Nobel Peace Prize Winner was slain aged 39 on the balcony of his motel by a white supremacist sniper on April 4, 1968, as well as in Washington where he delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech. “When we look at the state of race relations, we’ve made dramatic progress in 50 years — but we’re nowhere near where we need to be,” King’s activist son, Martin Luther King III, told ABC’s Good Morning America from Memphis, where he was taking part in a symbolic march. “I think he’d be disappointed with some of the discourse that we see,” said King III, although he added that his father would “be very excited” by today’s activist movements including Black Lives Matter, the #MeToo campaign for women’s rights, and student-led movements against gun violence.