BUFFALO N.Y. (WKBW) — Community members took time on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to reflect on the progress and work left to be done in their own back yards.
"It's important to understand where you come from," community leader at the Buffalo African American Cultural Center James Pitts said.
He had a front-row seat to history at the Kleinhans Music Hall.
"I also remember at the age of 13 going to see Dr. Martin Luther King speak at Kleinhans Music Hall," he said. "And i'll never forget it."
Pitts, the former Common Council President, was there that night King gave a speech in 1967. Pitts calls the Fruit Belt his home, Grape street to be exact.
"I grew up in the fire. I grew up in the crucible of the civil rights movement here in buffalo," he said.
The city of Buffalo, he shares, has made progress. Yet many things haven't changed from when he was growing up.
From inequality in schools, gun violence to the housing crisis.
"Many of the struggles we see today we faced at that time," Pitts stated. "Buffalo is still a very segregated and there has to be more of an effort to address that."
Bessie Patterson is Coordinator at the Concern Citizens Following the Dream organization. She said it's important for the community to come together not just in times of tragedy - such as in the aftermath of the tops mass shooting - but always.
"We'll come together and then after the incident dies down the memory of it we go right back to business as usual," she said. "We were together and thats the way it should be all the time."
She wants everyone to know Dr. Kings dream is still alive.
"We together are the dream," Patterson said.
