Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. told those at the luncheon he was 8 years old when King died. "I remember vividly because we lost a voice for hope."

Keynote speaker Julie Cunningham, executive director and CEO of the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials, said everything in the nation's civil rights movement can be related to transportation — all the way back to the Underground Railroad, which smuggled slaves to freedom.

Cunningham pointed out strides: recently the airport in Jackson, Miss., has been renamed for Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist gunned down in 1963.

But she said there are still gaping discrepancies that need to end. Blacks and Latinos comprise more than 50 percent of the ridership on the nation's public transportation systems, yet of the more than 500 systems nationwide, fewer than 10 percent have minorities as general managers, Cunningham said.

"African Americans are almost six times as likely as whites to use public transit," she said.

The NAACP used the luncheon to honor award recipients. University of Utah sophomore Clem Collins IV received a $1,000 NAACP Salt Lake Branch & Larry H. Miller/Utah Jazz scholarship for his studies in civil engineering.

The NAACP's Rosa Parks Award went to Joanne Milner, community relations program manager at Horizonte Instruction Center.

Former Judge Raymond Uno, who has done volunteer work for more than 50 years, received the Martin Luther King Jr. Civil Rights Award.

Uno said he tried to emulate his friend, former Salt Lake Branch NAACP president Albert Fritz, who many years ago had seen Uno's shoes were worn out, so he bought him a new pair.

"At the time I was a struggling college student with a family," Uno recalled. "If you are decent and loving, it sows the seeds of friendship."

One of the winners of the Martin Luther King Jr. statewide essay contest, South Jordan Middle School student Julie Flink, 14, said her writing on the "Challenge for Multi-Racial Diversity in Democracy" pointed out that people from every race need to work together.

"We need to teach our children while they are young, love versus hate," she said.

At BYU's evening observance, several hundred participants walked from the school's bell tower to the Wilkinson Center, holding candles and singing hymns.

Keynote speaker Don Harwell, president of the LDS Genesis group, told those present that the gospel of Jesus Christ "is yours; black, green, brown, it doesn't matter."

BYU student April Osborn of Riverside, Calif., came to the event with her LDS student ward and ward family group to "be supportive of our American heritage," she said.

"There's not many opportunities in Provo to honor Martin Luther King," she said, adding that this was her fourth year attending the event.

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Contributing: Wendy Leonard, Rodger L. Hardy; E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com