by KYW's Dr. Marciene Mattleman

There have been thousands of words written about Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.—about his commitment, his courage and his vision, and not just at the time when we commemorate his birthday.

His speeches are still widely quoted and there is hardly a city in the United States that doesn’t have a school or a street that bears his name.  At the age of 35, he was the youngest man to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

King was assassinated in 1968 and we wonder what he would have thought and said about our country today forty years later—urban violence, metal detectors at the entrance to schools, cities unable to enact their own much-needed gun laws.

King’s eloquence on the importance of non-violence is as meaningful today as it was in the mid-50s when he organized a successful black boycott of segregated city bus lines in Montgomery, Alabama.

There is a hunger today for strong and unwavering leadership to point to factors as better education, the need for jobs, adequate housing and healthcare that encourage civility rather than violent behavior.