People across the United States honored the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Monday, a national holiday.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate would have turned 83 this year. He was assassinated outside of a Memphis motel room April 4, 1968, at the age of 39.
The federal holiday in honor of King was first observed in 1986 and eight years later Congress also designated it as a national day of service.
Memorials, parades, church services, exhibits, community service projects and other King tributes were planned around the country.
In Atlanta, several people whose paths crossed with King spoke of his influence on their lives in interviews with The Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Dorothy Cotton, 81, Ithaca, N.Y., retired dean of students at Cornell University, traveled with King as education director for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was in the traveling party that went to Memphis in April 1968 when King was shot.
After his death, Cotton said, she worked with King's wife, Coretta Scott King, to start the King Center.
"Now I spend a lot of my time speaking and teaching about Dr. King and the civil rights movement," she said. "I do a lot of work looking at the lessons we learned and helping people organize. People are doing a lot of creative things, building off of the civil rights struggle."
As part of the nationwide celebration of his life, never-before-seen documents from King and other key figures in the U.S. civil rights movement became accessible online Monday at The King Center Web site.
The King Center Imaging Project matched JPMorgan Chase's technology expertise with center's archives to preserve and share King's works in a more accessible way, JPMorgan Chase said in a release.
Tens of thousands of documents – such as postcards, speeches, telegrams, meeting minutes and newspaper articles -- now are available in the digital archive at www.thekingcenter.org/archive.
"Our valued relationship with JPMorgan Chase and their innovative Technology for Social Good program is helping to preserve and extend my father's important message to sustain the momentum of non-violent social change around the world," said Martin Luther King, III, president of The King Center in Atlanta.
AT&T Business Solutions and EMC also worked on the nine-month project.
President Obama and his family planned to participate in a service event in the Washington area. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is featured speaker at the King Day at the Dome rally in South Carolina.
On Sunday, park rangers placed wreaths at the Washington Memorial honoring King, CNN reported. King's birthday was Sunday.
"We're celebrating the best of what we are, but also what we must become, knowing that we've not arrived there yet," Martin Luther King III said.
Obama and his family worshiped Sunday at Zion Baptist Church in Washington, which the Obamas have done each year on the eve of the federal holiday since they moved to Washington, The Washington Post said.
