US:ALL THREE United States presidential candidates have paid tribute to Martin Luther King on the 40th anniversary of his assassination.
John McCain and Hillary Clinton travelled to Memphis, where King was shot dead on a motel balcony, and Barack Obama spoke about the civil rights leader while campaigning in Indiana.
Addressing King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Mr McCain apologised for voting against making the civil rights leader's birthday a holiday in 1983 and said King seemed "a bigger man" 40 years after his death.
"The quality of his character is only more apparent. His good name will be honoured as long as the creed of America is honoured," Mr McCain said.
"Struggling is rewarded in God's own time. Wrongs are set right and evil is overcome. We know this to be true because it is the story of the man we honour today and because it is the story of our country."
Mrs Clinton, who has seen the overwhelming majority of black voters reject her in favour of Mr Obama, paid tribute to King at the Mason Temple in Memphis.
"It is heartbreaking to know that Dr King has been gone from this earth longer than he was here," she said.
The former first lady said the civil rights leader had inspired her ever since she met him as a teenage girl and suggested that his legacy should be honoured by taking up his fight against poverty.
"I mean finally addressing the scourge of poverty that continues to afflict so many of our families in this country. I mean appointing a cabinet-level position that will be solely and fully devoted to ending poverty as we know it in America, a position that will focus the attention of our nation on this issue," she said.
"He never gave up and neither should we," Mrs Clinton added. "Like with any faith there were dark moments - but he would always come back from those dark places. And so must we."
Speaking in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Mr Obama said King's legacy went beyond race, pointing out that he had gone to Memphis on the day of his death to support striking sanitation workers.
"For years, these workers had served their city without complaint, picking up other people's trash for little pay and even less respect. Passersby would call them 'walking buzzards', and in the segregated south, most were forced to use separate drinking fountains and bathrooms.
"But in 1968, these workers decided they'd had enough, and over 1,000 went on strike," Mr Obama said.
"This is the struggle that brought Dr King to Memphis. It was a struggle for economic justice, for the opportunity that should be available to people of all races and all walks of life.
"Because Dr King understood that the struggle for economic justice and the struggle for racial justice were really one - that each was part of a larger struggle 'for freedom, for dignity, and for humanity'."
Earlier, Mr Obama said he was not worried about being absent from Memphis. "I think it's important to spread the message that Dr King's work is unfinished, in places like Indiana and North Dakota," he told reporters.
Mr Obama has won the support of a number of senior party figures in recent weeks and former president Jimmy Carter hinted during a visit to Nigeria that he is also backing the Illinois senator.
Mr Carter said his home state of Georgia and his hometown of Plains backed Mr Obama in the state's February 5th primary.
His children, their spouses and his grandchildren support Mr Obama as well, he said. "As a superdelegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for, but I leave it to you to make that guess," Mr Carter said.