For those preparing to enjoy a three-day weekend in observance of this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it is important to also honor the memory of a civil rights leader who died working toward a dream that in many ways still has not been fulfilled.

Honor King this weekend by looking around — at your community, at your state, and at this country — and doing some honest thinking about how far we have to go.

We are approaching 60 years now since King was murdered for believing that one day “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” and that nonviolent civil disobedience was the way to make that dream come true.

He called that kind of resistance “a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love.”

King also said society’s three evils were poverty, racism and militarism; and asked “What happens to a dream deferred? It leads to bewildering frustration and corroding bitterness.”

Progress has been made. But every day looms the danger that it will be undone.

We must, then, honor King’s memory by pushing ahead, by holding on to the dream.

Because, “I say to you today, my friends, though, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”