Traveling to Lincoln from Boston, Higginbotham said her grandfather, the Rev. Walter Henderson Brooks, was born a slave in 1851. He “worked” for a tobacco company in Richmond, Virginia.

Family and others carrying on Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy of equality, justice and nonviolent protest want Americans to remember that Monday's holiday is really about helping others.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all,” even after four years of horrific war.

When Abraham Lincoln was preparing his speech for his second inaugural in 1865, historians think he cut the sentences and ...