There is special significance to Martin Luther King Day this year because, in six months, we will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the most important civil rights legislation in the nation’s history – the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

It was just two months ago that the nation paused to reflect on the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. It was Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, the powerful former senator from Texas, who used his political clout to get the bill passed – a task historians agree Kennedy would have had a much harder time completing.

There will be a lot of these half-century remembrances over the next few years because the mid-1960s was one of the more tumultuous periods of American history. From sex, drugs and rock and roll to political upheaval and the Vietnam War, not since the Civil War had the nation been so divided.

At the core of these controversies was the Civil Rights movement and its most ardent and visible leader, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. What started as mostly isolated sit-ins and boycotts in the mid 1950s blossomed into large, well-organized marches that, while peaceful in intent, were often punctuated by outside violence initiated by segregationists.

It was after one of those confrontations in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963 that King was arrested and detained. From his cell he answered his critics in a profoundly articulate and intellectual defense of his activism in the famous “Letter from Birmingham City Jail.” It became a manifesto for the civil rights movement.

Later that year, King led the March on Washington, where a quarter of a million people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial to hear his “I Have a Dream” speech.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The Civil Rights Act stands as an important milestone in achieving King’s dreams of equality. It was first proposed by Kennedy in June 1963 and given a huge boost by Johnson in his first address to a joint session of Congress, just days after the assassination.

“No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.”

Seven months later, the act was signed into law. Standing directly behind Johnson at the ceremony was King, a fitting recognition of his role in moving a nation closer to achieving its creed that all men are created equal.

Nearly four years later, King would be dead, assassinated as he stood on the balcony of Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., by James Earle Ray. The night before, he had given a speech that foreshadowed his death.

“I’ve been to the mountaintop [and] I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”

We are not there yet, but much progress has been made. There currently are 43 black members in the U.S. House of Representatives and one in the Senate. In 1964 there were just three black members of the House.

But there are worrisome trends as well. The gap between the median adjusted incomes of black and white families was worse in 2011 than it was in 1967. Modest gains of the 1990s were wiped out by the Great Recession. An incredible 67 percent of black families were single parent households in 2011, compared to 25 percent for whites.

Perhaps President Obama said it best last year when asked to assess the evolution of black Americans since the March on Washington:

“To dismiss the magnitude of this progress, to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed – that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years. But we would dishonor those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete.”

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