The North Carolina Democratic Party pauses today to mark the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King was murdered at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead sanitation workers on a protest against low wages and unsafe working conditions.

This grim anniversary comes at a time when Democrats are poised to elect the nation’s first African-American or female President.

We carry the embers of Dr. King’s unfinished work as Democrats have successfully worked to increase state and federal minimum wage rates.

Sparked by a Charlotte Observer series on severe working conditions and preventable deaths occurring in the state’s poultry industry, Democrats in Washington are working to toughen penalties and enforcement on chronic violators.

But we have more work to do.

Shortly before his death, Dr. King launched a “Poor People’s Campaign” and advocated for an economic bill of rights. He called Congress to task for demonstrating its “hostility to the poor” by appropriating “military funds with alacrity and generosity” while providing “poverty funds with miserliness”.

The same could be said today of the Bush Administration and its arrogant refusal to expand health insurance for children of working poor families. Meanwhile Republicans like Elizabeth Dole tout spending 4 percent of the country’s gross national product (roughly $566 billion) on the military without accountability.

Dr. King requested that at his funeral no mention of his honors and awards be made. Instead he wanted to be remembered as someone who tried to “feed the hungry, clothe the poor, be right on the (Vietnam) war question, and love and serve humanity”.

“Dr. King’s principles and ideals did not die with him,” said NCDP Chair Jerry Meek. “The 40th anniversary of his death serves as a reminder to commit ourselves to the highest and best within all of us and to continue to believe in dreams.”