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 King's 1960s dream of racial equality was being viewed through a
lens focused on the deaths of unarmed black men after confrontations
with police, including Eric Garner, who died in July after being put
in a chokehold in New York City, and Michael Brown, shot in
Ferguson, Missouri, in August.
More than 60 people demonstrating against police brutality were
arrested after blocking traffic on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, a
major thoroughfare in the San Francisco Bay Area, said California
Highway Patrol Officer Damian Cistaro.
Another 19 people were arrested by Seattle police after protesters
blocked a major artery, causing traffic delays.
More than 1,800 people pressed into a King commemoration service at
the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King once preached,
some holding signs with his famous quote "I am a man," others with
placards reading "I can't breathe" in Garner's memory and "Hands up!
Don't shoot!" to honor Brown.
 "We look at the yellow crime scene tape that's wrapped around
America now and we know that we have a lot of work still to do,"
Gwendoyln Boyd, president of Alabama State University, told the
crowd that responded with an earsplitting "Amen!"
'RECLAIMING MARTIN LUTHER KING'
About 400 protesters blocked traffic in New York City as they walked
about 60 blocks from Harlem to near the United Nations, chanting
"Black lives matter!" as King's speeches blared from loudspeakers.
"This march is about reclaiming Martin Luther King. He was a radical
organizer - he's been arrested, he believed in non-violence, but he
was also disruptive," said Linda Sarsour, spokeswoman for the
Justice League NYC, which organized the #Dream4Justice March.
Hours before an evening vigil on the Staten Island street where
Garner died, his family placed wreaths on the Brooklyn street where
two uniformed officers were ambushed in December by a gunman
claiming to avenge the deaths of Garner and Brown.
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"This holiday should also represent that we are unequivocally
against the shedding of innocent blood," said the Rev. Al Sharpton,
who accompanied Garner's widow, mother and children as they laid
down arrangements of blue hyacinths and white roses.
Demonstrations in other U.S. cities included 1,500 protesters
against police brutality in Oakland, California, said Oakland Police
Officer Johnna Watson. There were no arrests.
President Barack Obama, the nation's first African-American
president, took a more traditional approach to honoring King,
spending the day working with his family and other children on a
literacy project at a Washington charity.
Obama has shied away from race-related activism, but after a grand
jury failed to indict a white officer in Brown's death, he spoke out
against what he called the "deep distrust" between law enforcement
and black Americans, vowing to use his last two years in office to
improve community policing and trust between the groups.
(Additional reporting by Natasja Sheriff in New York, Rich McKay in
Atlanta, Peter Henderson and Noah Berger in Oakland; Emmett Berg in
San Francisco; Steve Holland in Washington, and Victoria Cavaliere
in Seattle; Editing by Barbara Goldberg, Mary Wisniewski, G Crosse,
Diane Craft and Nick Macfie)
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