AUSTIN, Texas — Sunday, Jan. 15, would have been Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 94th birthday, and Monday marks Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The social justice and civil rights activist will be honored across the country, including right here in Central Texas.
"The journey that King was on was an unfinished one, and the issues that he was so concerned with in the later part of his are very much still with us today," said Dr. Laurie Green, a historian at the University of Texas at Austin.
Green says Dr. King's impact is felt today, as people fight for social justice, civil and equal rights, marching the streets, looking for change.
"History hasn't stopped," she said. "History is something that continues and continues to impact us."
Central Texans will celebrate Dr. King's legacy on Monday, uplifting diversity and multiculturism.
Green said since Dr. King's assassination, people have taken up the issues he was concerned and passionate about.
"King, actually, when he died, was trying to organize this big movement of all different kinds of people from different backgrounds to make a change, and I think that's something that so many young people today have figured out, that there needs to be a coming-together," she said.
Come together they will, remembering the fight had and the fight that continues – something Green said Dr. King likely would have been a part of.
"It's so important to remember the myriad of people that were involved and kept King going, and that those people walked many different kinds of life, and that, it wasn't in, say, Mississippi and Alabama, which are the places that so famous, but also it was in New York and in Chicago, in Los Angeles and here indeed in Austin, Texas," Green said.
On Monday morning, many will gather to march from the Martin Luther King statue on the UT campus, all the way to the south steps of the Texas state capitol, and from there to Huston-Tillotson University. The march starts at 9 a.m.
Once everyone arrives at Huston-Tillotson, there will be a community festival with vendors and live music. This march has been a tradition in Austin since 1994.