Economic justice focus of King remembrances

(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Edmund Hillary Clinton, challengers for the Democratic presidential nomination, focused on economical justness in addresses Friday marking the day of remembrance of the Rev. St Martin Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.

Sen. Edmund Hillary Bill Bill Clinton waits to be introduced before her address on the day of remembrance of MLK Jr.'s assassination.

Clinton and the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. Toilet McCain, spoke to audiences in Memphis, Tennessee, where King was killed 40 old age ago.

Obama, the Prairie State senator who trusts to go the first achromatic president, downplayed race in his address in Garrison Wayne, Indiana.

"Dr. King understood that the battle for economical justness and the battle for racial justness were really one -- that each was portion of a bigger battle 'for freedom, for self-respect and for humanity,' " said, pointing out that had been in Memphis, Tennessee, to back up dramatic sanitation workers when he was killed.

Obama noted an economical study released Friday said the American economic system lost 80,000 occupations last month.

"Just this morning, it was announced that more than Americans are unemployed now than at any clip in years," he said.

Obama was speaking to a racially amalgamated crowd of a few thousand at a political campaign town hallway meeting.

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Before the speech, he said he was not concerned about how his absence from Memphis would be interpreted.

"I spoke at Dr. King's Christian church on his birthday. I was with the King household then. I obviously gave a fairly buttery address on the state of race dealings just two hebdomads ago. And I believe it's important to distribute the message that Dr. King's work is unfinished in topographic points like Hoosier State and North Dakota," he said.

spoke at George Mason Temple Church of Supreme Being in Christ, where King gave his celebrated "I have got been to the mountaintop" address the nighttime before he died.

She became visibly emotional as she remembered hearing King had been shot.

Like Obama, she emphasized economical justness in her remarks.

"I believe we should name a Cabinet-level place that volition be solely and fully devoted to ending poorness as we cognize it in America," she said, "a position that volition focusing our attending on the issue in this state and never allow it go." She said King's message was universal. Don't Miss

"When helium stood against discrimination, he was not just speaking for African-Americans he was seeking to interrupt the bonds of hate on the Black Maria of us all."

spoke in Memphis at a meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a organisation closely associated with King, and said he was incorrect to have got opposed a national vacation honoring the civil rights leader.

"We can be slow as well to give greatness its due, a error I made myself long ago when I voted against a federal vacation in memory of Dr. King. I was incorrect and eventually realized that," McCain said. He have expressed sorrow for his stance previously.

President Shrub issued a statement marking the anniversary.

"Forty old age ago today, United States was robbed of one of history's most consequential advocators for equality and civil rights," he said. "We have got made advancement on Dr. King's dream, yet the battle is not over. Ensuring freedom and equality for all Americans stays one of our most of import responsibilities."