<p>U.S. Rep. John Lewis can still remember being a nervous college student meeting his idol, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., for the first time.</p><p>"He changed my life," Lewis recalled. ""The most peaceful warrior of the 20th century lived and walked among us."</p><p>Hearing King on the radio during the Montgomery Bus Boycott as a 15-year-old student inspired Lewis to follow King's teachings of nonviolence and join the movement for racial harmony and equality.</p><p>Their ten-year relationship came to an end when King was gunned down on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968. Lewis, an Alabama native who became one of the slain civil rights leader's top aides, was in Indianapolis when he heard the news.</p><p>"It was a very sad and dark hour in America and for the movement," Lewis said. "But we didn't give up, we didn't give in. We kept the faith.</p><p>"Martin Luther King is telling us today that we must never give up or lose faith," he said.</p><p>Nearly four decades after his assassination, King's voice again boomed from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church, where a ceremony was held to commemorate the 37th anniversary of his death.</p><p>King's message continues to reach the thousands who flock to the national historic site each year, including the dozens gathered in the church's sanctuary Saturday to commemorate the anniversary of King's death.</p><p>The multiracial audience of young and old listened to excerpts from King's speeches _ including "I've Been to the Mountain Top," delivered in Memphis just hours before his death _ and joined hands as they sang the battle hymn of the civil rights movement, "We Shall Overcome."</p><p>Patricia Wilson, who came to the ceremony with her two sisters, was a 20-year-old student at the University of Michigan when she heard the news that King had been killed.</p><p>"It hit me like a bolt of lightning," she recalled. "I wondered what was happening to our country."</p><p>The 57-year-old San Diego, Calif., woman said she wanted to mark the anniversary of King's death at the historic church where he preached from 1960 to 1968.</p><p>"Hearing his voice, the greatness of the man is something that touches me. He was somebody who gave his life for social change," Wilson said.</p><p>King was 39 years old when he was shot to death at the Motel Lorraine in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968. James Earl Ray was convicted of his murder a year later, and sentenced to 99 years in prison. He died in 1998.</p><p>Organizers urged the ceremony attendees to remember King's life as well as his death, and to celebrate his enduring legacy.</p><p>"Martin Luther King, more than any other American of the 20th century, had the power, the ability, and the capacity to bring more people together to do good," Lewis said.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x28638b8)</p><p>HASH(0x2863918)</p>
