Atlanta CNN  — 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have turned 88 yesterday.

In 2017, as America prepares to say goodbye to its first black president, the world looks very different than it did during King’s time. Progress has been made, yet racial tensions persist and people everywhere continue to fight for basic human rights.

In honor of the King national holiday, we visited his Atlanta boyhood home; historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he began his ministry; his gravesite; and the Center for Civil and Human Rights to ask people what the day, and King’s legacy, means to them.

Here’s what they told us.

‘People should be treated equally’

‘It didn’t just happen this way overnight’

‘A time for celebration and reflection’

‘We need to be out in the streets, educating’

‘I wanted to … bring my mom’

‘He fought for all people’

‘An important history lesson for my grandson’

‘I wanted them to feel it’

‘(He) inspires people to speak up for themselves’

‘We came down here and learned a lot’

‘It’s been busy all morning’

‘I came to pay my respects’

Lining up to touch history

Life returns – slowly – to MLK’s old neighborhood