Dozens of Ansonians marched across Wadesboro to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

After a prayer breakfast at First United Methodist Church in Wadesboro, the crowd marched to Kesler Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church. There, citizens listened to speakers and sang as part of the holiday.

Several local leaders were in attendance and gave brief remarks. Many commented on not just King's legacy of racial equality but the imperative of continuing to act in the face of today's problems.

"Now is the time for good people to stand up and be counted," Representative Pryor Gibson said. Gibson represents Anson and Union counties in the North Carolina General Assembly.

"Dr. King was a fighter for all," said Michael McLeod, the executive director for individual and organizational accessibility of Anson County Schools.

Sheriff Tommy Allen briefly discussed the consequences of Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her bus seat. The bus boycott that followed, which King led, catapulted King to national prominence.

"That incident changed the world forever," Sheriff Allen said.

"What makes you restless?" he asked. "Choose one thing and do something about it."

"What has history taught us?" Wadesboro Police Chief Janie Schutz asked. "We can learn from our mistakes."

She said King's parents wanted the same things for him as any parent, to give him a better life and world. She said he proved violence was not necessary to solve some of society's gravest ills, like prejudice.

"The dreamer was killed but the dream is not dead," Shirley Allen said.

The main speaker, minister Donna McNair, connected King's dream of a world with racial equality to the simple statement of fact in the Declaration of Independence.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

"Dr. King dared to dream an impossible dream," she said. "He had to stand on the shoulders of others who went before him," she added, like Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass.

McNair talked about Harriet Tubman's fierce resolve in smuggling slaves out of the South through the Underground Railroad. Tubman carried a gun and would threaten the life of anyone who wished to turn back.

"Are we going to go north or stay here and die?" McNair said, creating a metaphor throughout her speech about the need for action today.

"It is our time now to dream the next impossible dream," she said.