Martin Luther

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 43 years ago today and many are remembering the iconic civil-rights leader.

On Sunday, his son spoke at St. Sabina Catholic Church in Chicago. Martin Luther King III told the congregation that there is too much emphasis on his father as an idol.

"I'm sick and tired of people singing about King, rapping about King, even using King to justify policies that we all know he would be against as opposed to embracing the ideals of King. Trying to love your neighbor, like King. Trying to help the poor like King," Martin Luther King III said.

King was pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama from 1954-59. There he led blacks in the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56, an action inspired by the arrest of Rosa Parks when she refused to give up her seat on a public bus.

On the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1963, King organized a march on Washington, D.C. that drew 200,000 people demanding equal rights for minorities.

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated while standing on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis. King, who preached non-violent resistance, was in Memphis to support striking city sanitation workers.