(LEX 18) — Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, more than half a century ago, but his legacy lives on.
In Kentucky, the civil rights bill he fought for is still the law of the land.
In order to lobby for its passage, King led about 10,000 demonstrators in the March on Frankfort in 1964.
"While they did not get the civil rights bill passed initially, two years later the General Assembly voted, making Kentucky the first state to pass civil rights legislation in the South," Kentucky NAACP PAC chairman Adrian Wallace, said.
When King was assassinated, he was mourned across the country. At EKU, a march was help in his memory on April 11, 1968.
Even though King is gone, Wallace said we can still try to achieve King's dream, but the Commonwealth still has a lot of work to do.
"We can pass all this legislation to make it illegal to discriminate against folks, but you can't force people to love somebody," Wallace said. "Or force people to not discriminate against somebody personally, their unconscious bias. But you can certainly help people unlearn fear and hate and that's what we have got to do."
