Events across US mark 50th anniversary of assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King

The 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr has been commemorated with speeches, marches and honorary services in the US on Wednesday.

Hundreds of people joined a march in Memphis led by the sanitation workers union whose low pay Dr King had come to protest when he was shot.

Attendees held signs reading "I am a man", the slogan used 50 years before during a march for equal pay for African American sanitation workers.

Then: Dr King was assassinated in Memphis where he was joining a protest in Memphis for equal pay for sanitation workers.

Dr King's contemporaries, including Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and US Republican John Lewis are set to attend events throughout the day.

Events in Memphis will culminate in a bell-ringing and wreath-laying at his crypt to mark the moment when he was gunned down on the balcony of the old Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968, aged 39.

Now: People marking the death of Dr King held signs reading: 'I am a man'. Credit: AP/Mark Humphrey

Others were assembling in Atlanta, where King's daughter the Reverend Bernice A King was set to moderate an awards ceremony in his honour.

The family began commemorations the night before at the Memphis' Mason Temple Church of God in Christ where Dr King delivered his "I've Been To The Mountaintop" speech the night before he was assassinated.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr during his last public appearance at the Mason Temple in Memphis, the night before he was shot and killed.

Ms King, now 55, called her older brother, Martin Luther King III, to join her in the pulpit, and she discussed the difficulty of publicly mourning their father "a man hated during his lifetime, now beloved around the world."

She said: "It's important to see two of the children who lost their daddy 50 years ago to an assassin's bullet.

"But we kept going. Keep all of us in prayer as we continue the grieving process for a parent that we've had yet to bury."

Bernice King and her brother Martin Luther King III embrace at a ceremony in Memphis. Credit: AP

Former US President Barack Obama released a video featuring Representative John Lewis and high school children paying tribute to Dr King.

In the video, he told the students: "Being on the right side of history isn’t always popular. And it isn’t always easy.

"You don’t know when things are going to break your way. You don’t know whether your labours will deliver."

Mr Lewis added: "When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just you have a moral obligation to do something, to say something. Dr King inspired us to do just that."

Lewis, a friend of King and a civil rights icon who was almost killed during the Blood Sunday march in Selma, Alabama, is the last living speaker from King’s 1963 March on Washington.

In Washington DC, scores of people gathered at the Martin Luther King Memorial and followed the route to the National Mall to replicate the historic day where Dr King said: "I have a dream."

The march was followed by an interfaith service followed by a rally calling for an end to racism.

Who was Dr Martin Luther King?

Martin Luther King greets 250,000 civil rights supporters in Washington in 1963.

Dr King's non-violent stance inspired people worldwide making him an international icon of social justice.

King and his supporters challenged voting registration tactics that barred African American voters from election polls and tackled incidents of segregation and discrimination, particularly in the South.

As head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Baptist Minister led peaceful protests including the Blood Sunday march in Selma, Alabama and the March on Washington, widely seen as a fundamental turning point in the fight for civil rights.

He is most famously remembered for his inspirational public speeches including 'I Have A Dream' which he delivered to 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

Registrar Carl Golson shakes a finger at Dr King during a meeting after he queried procedures for voting registration for African Americans. Credit: AP Photo/Horace Cort, File

In 1964, then US President Lyndon B Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act which banned segregation and discrimination due to race, gender and religion. That same year, Dr King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr King described the Act, which was expanded the following year to include voting and housing rights, as "nothing less than a second emancipation".

Three years later, Dr King was assassinated devastating his supporters both in the US and worldwide.

Then and now - how have US civil rights changed in 50 years?

Martin Luther King Junior is said to have inspired Barack Obama. Credit: AP

In the 50 years following Dr King's death, America has seen stark changes in society and politics with many hailing the inauguration of Barack Obama as the first US African American President in 2009 as the activists "dream come true".

However in recent years, the US has seen the resurgence of white supremacy, shootings of unarmed black men and discouraging statistics on the lack of progress among African Americans in housing, education and wealth.

King's eldest granddaughter Yolanda Renee King, nine, who spoke in support of gun control last month at the Our Lives rally told Good Morning America: "I think that he would be impressed about all the work that we’re doing but we’re not where we’re supposed to be."

Yolanda Renee King at the Our Lives rally. Credit: AP

Her father, Martin Luther King III added: "I think he’d be disappointed with some of the discourse that we see [today] but he’d be very excited to see the high school student-led movements.

"He’d be very excited about the #MeToo movement. He’d be very excited about what Black Lives Matter is doing, all of these non-violent movements."

“He would know that we as a nation can, must and will do better,” he added.

Martin Luther King III said that his father would have been 'excited' by Black Lives Matter. Credit: AP

Lee Saunders, a national labour leader, who was part of the crowd in 1968 when King delivered his final speech, said: "Dr King's work - our work - isn't done. We must still struggle; we must still sacrifice. We must still educate and organise and mobilise. That's why we're here in Memphis. Not just to honour our history, but to seize our future."

In a message commemorating the anniversary, President Donald Trump says it's up to people, not the government, to achieve the ideals expressed by Dr King.

He echoed King's own words saying: "We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters lest we perish together as fools."

"Though he was taken from this earth unjustly, he left us with his legacy of justice and peace," President Trump said.

"It is not government that will achieve Dr. King’s ideals, but rather the people of this great country who will see to it that our Nation represents all that is good and true, and embodies unity, peace, and justice. We must actively aspire to secure the dream of living together as one people with a common purpose," he added.