On January 20, 1986, half a million people looked on as the inaugural Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade wended down Peachtree Street and turned into Auburn Avenue, in downtown Atlanta. Thousands marched, singing civil rights movement anthems, in a scene that reminded the New York Times of the 1950s and 1960s.

On this day, however, police supported rather than menaced marchers. Coretta Scott King, widowed seventeen and a half years earlier, led bands, unionists, war veterans, 280 different groups, and some of the city’s homeless population through the city streets. Movement veteran and Atlanta mayor Andrew Young watched as crowds overflowed into the street and temporarily halted the procession, blurring the boundary between spectators and marchers. Begun in the early afternoon, after four hours the parade finished at King’s crypt on “Sweet Auburn,” as the avenue was affectionately known.

The celebrations did not end there. Promoted with the slogan “Living the Dream,” the holiday’s reach extended across the nation. That night, NBC televised a two-hour program of concert highlights from Atlanta, New York, and Washington, DC. Musician Stevie Wonder organized the events and edited footage for the two-hour national television extravaganza. Eight thousand radio stations across the nation played excerpts of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at midday, and the New York Times reported that “church bells tolled, choirs sang and citizens paused” to reflect. Andrew Young aptly summarized the mood: “The leader may have departed . . . but the dream continues.”