With each passing day, fewer people may remember when Martin Luther King Jr. was alive, but the legacy the slain civil rights leader left-a national discourse about race relations-lives on.
Legislation signed in 1983 marked the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a federal holiday. In 1994, Congress designated the federal holiday as a national day of service.
"I was living and active and working at that time," said Eileen Iverson, a 94-year-old retired educator from the Brainerd School District. "I remember when he made his speech in Washington, D.C., but I wasn't there. I was a school teacher."
Iverson was referring to King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963, in which he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States.
"To me, it was very moving," Iverson said. "And it also was so important, I think, for his people-the African-American people-to hear encouraging things, and it was very encouraging, as far as I was concerned, for them to hear what he had to say."
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King delivered the speech to more than a quarter of a million civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and it is considered by many a defining moment of the civil rights movement.
"I would say if there were any black people in Brainerd at that time, I didn't know it," Iverson said.
According to the latest population estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau about race and Brainerd, those who are "black or African-American" comprise 2.1 percent of the city's population last year, while "American Indian or Alaska Native" made up 2 percent.
"I think the race relations that were kind of edgy were between the (American) Indian people and the whites," Iverson recalled of the 1960s.
Iverson volunteers at the gift shop at The Center, a Brainerd-based nonprofit whose mission is "encouraging mature adults to engage in healthy living, socialization, lifelong learning and community connections."
Iverson was a teacher for almost three decades before she retired in 1984. She said she was "hopeful" for the country following the speech by King, who, at the age of 35, was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize.
"No, we're not color blind yet. There are many people who are still quite biased, I'm sure," Iverson said.
After the abolition of slavery, racial segregation or separation of access to housing and education, for example, based on the color of one's skin was prevalent, especially in the South. Blacks were also refused services such as dining in the same establishments as whites.
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"I, myself, am not biased. I was raised in Minneapolis, and when I went to school, I went to school with people of a variety of ethnic backgrounds, so I wasn't biased myself. I never have been, and I am really happy for every good thing that brings us all together," Iverson said.
King was assassinated while on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968. He was in the city to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers.
"I know that we're divided, and I know that it's kind of political now rather than racial, although I'm sure race is part of it," Iverson said of the current contentious state of affairs of the country.
"I think it's terrible. I think the president is the cause of a lot of the problems, and I think that young people who are out there struggling for rights for everybody are doing a great job, and I'm so proud of them, and I hope that it will continue."
