We hope our readers will pause within the coming days to reflect on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an authentic advocate for human rights, justice and peace. His work on behalf of African-Americans, the poor, everyday workers, the neglected and the ignored pricked the conscience of the nation and helped America to start to live up to the ideals of freedom and equality as written in the U.S. Constitution.

Dr. King would have been 90 on Jan. 15, which is difficult to envision because of the elements of hate that struck him down in an effort to kill the dream.

But Dr. King’s words are immortal and continue to guide us today as we grapple with the latest onslaught of forces that are antithetical to the messages of truth he brought to the world.  

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy,” Dr. King said.

We hope that our lawmakers in Washington will heed Dr. King’s words in an effort to resolve the perilous and hurtful government shutdown that is now heading into week five. There needs to be a quick end to this shutdown brought on by an erratic president hell-bent on building a $5.7 billion border wall between the United States and Mexico.

In all, about 420,000 federal employees deemed essential are working without pay, while another 380,000 are furloughed, including tens of thousands in Virginia. No one knows when they will receive a paycheck. The shutdown is destabilizing their lives and those of their children and families, threatening the health and safety of the American people and harming our economy. We doubt President Trump understands that this is not making America great again.

What would Dr. King do to bring justice and peace to this situation?

We remind Free Press readers that Dr. King was a young man when he began his human rights work on a platform of civil disobedience. He was only 29 when he was given charge of the Montgomery Improvement Association that was started by a group of African-American ministers and community leaders. Under Dr. King’s leadership, the association was instrumental in guiding the Montgomery bus boycott that was launched after Rosa Parks’ arrest for refusing to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus for a white passenger in segregated Montgomery, Ala. The boycott focused national attention on the racial inequalities in the segregated South and brought Dr. King into the national limelight.

But Dr. King didn’t stay in Alabama. When he was asked to help people facing similar injustices in other parts of the South, he answered the call. He was 34 when he led the seminal March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963. He was 39 when he was killed by an assassin’s bullet in Memphis, Tenn., where he was supporting striking sanitation workers protesting poor pay and dangerous working conditions highlighted after a worker was crushed to death by a garbage truck compactor.

We believe hope, energy, ideas and solutions often are generated by the young, like Dr. King, who was unafraid and unburdened by the “no”s of the past. That’s why we are encouraged by the vision and effervescence of today’s young leaders, such as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who is 29, and Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, 39. They are driven to tackle problems head on, bringing their unique style and recommendations to the table. We applaud them for not standing back and waiting on older people, who often fail to take action because they are mired in useless process and false protocol.

We need our leaders to push for progress in the critical areas advanced by Dr. King — voting rights, equity in education, a living wage and human rights, including equal justice.

As we celebrate the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday on Monday, Jan. 21, with a day of action and service, we urge our readers to view the mural honoring Dr. King located by Martin Luther King Middle School in the East End. The mural, completed by local artists Sir James Thornhill and Hamilton Glass with the help of schoolchildren, provides uplift for youngsters as they travel to and from school daily. It also presents a bright gateway to the Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge that connects the East End to the city’s core in Downtown.

We ask our readers to take note of the ways we honor Dr. King in Richmond by naming a school and a bridge for him. Then note how many public memorials — statues, plaques, streets, bridges, schools and other monuments — there are to Confederates.

Dr. King was a true hero and a man of peace, while the Confederates were traitors to this nation, waging a bloody war against the United States in order to keep black people in human bondage. They are not the people we want our children to venerate or the lessons we want them to learn.

As we think about Dr. King, we renew our call for the statues of these Confederates to be removed from Monument Avenue. And we call on Virginians to contact Gov. Ralph S. Northam, Lt. Gov. Fairfax and members of the Virginia General Assembly to urge elimination of the Lee-Jackson state holiday honoring the Confederates.

Honor belongs to true heroes like Dr. King.