Today, as we celebrate the birth, life and work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the world is a much different place than it was 40 years ago when the civil rights leader was assassinated on a Memphis, Tenn., motel balcony on April 4, 1968.

Since his death, the United States and the hearts and minds of its people have made great strides in the areas of civil rights and equality -- for the first time in U.S. history a black man and a white woman are serious, viable candidates for the presidency. But how would he react to the ongoing violence that is taking the lives of so many young black men in our inner cities, including Pittsburgh? Or the wide achievement gap that continues between black and white students? Or the Hurricane Katrina disaster?

To mark the 40th anniversary of his death, we asked people throughout the Pittsburgh area: What would Martin Luther King Jr. do if he were alive today?

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I'm sure he'd be hanging his head down in terms of the genocide in the black community, in terms of black males killing one another. We're not even going to be around in another 50 or 60 years if it doesn't slow down.

I see him sitting next to the Lincoln Memorial with his head between his hands, weeping. It's just so sad. There's no respect for life and no hope, and that's one of the reasons why so many young African-American males, their whole identity is tied up with, "Well, if I die young, then I've got to do what I've got to do. What do I have to live for anyway?"

How many role models do they have to look up to? I can count the number of black CEOs on the street at noontime on one hand.

We've got to do something about restoring hope.

-- Jonas Chaney, 56, of Wilkinsburg, WPXI public affairs director

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Were he alive today I'd be working with him because I'm carrying out that legacy in work here. And I would remind him of something he said when he was alive: "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

Who would have imagined in 2008 we would find the vestiges of racial discrimination [that MLK battled] are in our health-care delivery system, where professionals have dedicated themselves to serving and healing?

There is no better arena to continue to fight for in civil rights, to continue to make progress in this country, than in the arena of health.

-- Dr. Stephen Thomas, 54, of Highland Park, director of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Minority Health

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I don't think there would have been as much violence. He would persuade black people to accomplish goals and reach for the limit and not shoot their best friend. He would be alarmed at the statistics, the alarming rate that African-American men die and the alarming rate that African-American girls have babies.

-- Chanel King, 21, of Mount Oliver, a boutique sales representative

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He would demand of all of us -- school officials, teachers, parents and students -- that we dramatically raise our expectations for students of all races, but particularly African-American students. And he would rally the community behind efforts to support students in their academic ambitions.

-- Mark Roosevelt, 52, of Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh Public Schools superintendent

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Martin Luther King would have had a blog and a dream.

His rallies, his struggles in the community -- you would be able to get up every day and read about his struggles on his blog. He would download his speeches to podcasts.

It is an even playing field online. The online world is more free of racial discrimination. You can present your ideas without anybody knowing who you are.

Dr. King would have a newsletter and mailing list of people who believed in his dream. He would urge hip-hop artists to write positive lyrics and encourage people to support television programs that portray African-Americans in a positive way.

-- Donna Baxter, 38, of Bloomfield, Web mistress of the thesoulpitt.com. She is writing a book called "Mr. King Would Have Had a Blog and a Dream."

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If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, I would like to see him address the fear that exists within our society of placing qualified blacks and African-Americans in powerful decision-making positions. This fear is present in every sector: government, for-profit, nonprofit, arts, sports, fashion industry, etc.

-- Demeatria Boccella, 37, of Regent Square, founder of Fashion Africana

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I believe that because of King's own mastery of the English language, he would be outspoken about the use of words now in the public realm. I imagine King would have an ongoing dialogue with young musicians about lyrics that elevate words to acceptability that were off limits not that long ago. I think he would extend that conversation to television and film writers as well.

I also imagine that King would likely have something to say about the Golf Channel commentator who, during the Mercedes-Benz Championship earlier this month, joked that any golfer trying to test Tiger Woods might have to "lynch him in a back alley." Woods' people dismissed the remark as a poor choice of words since he and the commentator are friends. But I think Dr. King would speak to a broader issue. He might ask how we've become so flippant with powerful words like "lynch."

Beyond a continued work in the field of social justice, I believe Dr. King would be a champion of the concept of thinking before speaking and paying attention to the impact of words -- especially words expressed to a broad audience.

-- Harold Hayes, 54, of Squirrel Hill, KDKA-TV news reporter

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If Martin Luther King were here today, he would be championing the fight to ensure that our neighborhoods, our leadership and our workforces be more unified and harmonious. If I could engage him with us today in the City of Pittsburgh, I would ask him to travel with our DiverseCity 365 Road Show, which focuses on recruiting more minorities for professional city careers, to help us develop a more dynamic and diverse staff that both represents and serves our residents.

-- Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, 27, of Summer Hill

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I would want him to focus on the growth and development of the youth in America, African-American and otherwise. I would want him to target the development of their character and their academic attainment. They can do the rest from there.

I think Martin Luther King would be concerned and disappointed if he looked at the status of our youth in America, especially African-American children. How life doesn't seem like it matters to children, how they take death so nonchalantly. I think he would be concerned and want to address the issue of character and understand the critical importance of education.

When I think about Martin Luther King, I think about a movement. This would be a movement, not something he would be jumping up and down about, but something he would be engaging everyone in, galvanizing the country.

-- Esther L. Bush, 56, of Highland Park, president and CEO of the Urban League of Pittsburgh Inc.

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I believe Martin Luther King Jr. would continue his mission of raising public consciousness and promoting peace and equality. While we have made strides in achieving greater diversity, equality and opportunities, we can still do more. We have a wealth of talented, energetic and diverse people who should be involved at every level of decision making. That is my goal, and one I believe Dr. King would share.

-- Dan Onorato, 46, of Brighton Heights, Allegheny County chief executive

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If you look back historically, the civil-rights movement emboldened and empowered other groups who saw themselves as not getting full rights and justice in the American system. On its heels came the gay pride movement and the women's movement. That could not have happened if the trail had not been blazed by Dr. King.

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said in an interview on WQED when he was here in October, he was against apartheid because the victims of apartheid were people of color who had no control over what they looked like. People similarly don't make choices of gender or sexual orientation. So I think [Dr. King's] active ministry would have addressed that.

-- The Rev. Dr. Harold Lewis, 60, of Point Breeze, rector since 1996 of Calvary Episcopal Church in East Liberty

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I think the first thing Dr. King would do is openly oppose the war and demand that the troops be brought back home.

I think he would have envisioned the coming economic recession and would have analyzed the impact it will have on poor people. It was a long time in the discussion of the mortgage crisis, which was largely a result of predatory lending practices on the poor, before it was realized they would suffer the majority impact. He would have been advocating that the government step in to help stop victimizing them.

He would be heartbroken at the misery and hopelessness of inner-city youth and the level of drug and gun trafficking that leads to homicides across inner-city America, and appalled by the lack of leadership coming from all political leaders on these issues.

He avoided presidential endorsements, but I think that by now he would have organized a national, multi-ethnic coalition that would be able to take a position based on the economic needs of a cross-section of the poor across the country, including Latino- and African-Americans. And I imagine he would look very favorably on the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, realizing the dream of a black president.

-- Sala Udin, 64, former city councilman from the Hill District who is now president and CEO of the Coro Center for Civic Leadership

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He'd be really disappointed. This country is no longer unified. Everybody is so into themselves. It's not even white and black anymore. Race should be the issue, but because you have so many economic problems, it isn't. He'd work against inequality, and 40 to 50 years later it's still prevalent. It's no longer black and white, not since 9/11. You can be from Pakistan, Afghanistan, even Uruguay, and people are fearful of you. ...

We're getting ready to see a woman president or a black president, which they never would have envisioned in our grandparents' day, but he'd have to tackle more than inequality.

-- Angel Kendall, 23, of Lawrenceville, a boutique sales representative

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If Martin Luther King were alive today, he would still be very active speaking around the country, perhaps retired from political office. His vision was for America as a nation.

So often we narrow his intent to civil rights as relating to race issues, but he was about HUMAN rights. He so skillfully forced America to look at itself. A country claiming to be a beacon of freedom and liberty should investigate how it is treating its own people. This level of soul searching would be his thrust, I hope.

-- Thomas Wesley Douglas, 51, of Duquesne, artistic director of the Bach Choir

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I think the door would have been open for him to be involved in a variety of things. He may have run for an elected position. He may have continued to monitor in the United States, if not worldwide, human-rights issues.

I think if you look around the country today there is still enough disparity along racial lines that he would still be focused greatly on making sure the nation is equal and that there are more opportunities for black men and women throughout our country.

-- Lynn Swann, 55, of Sewickley, former Steeler and Republican gubernatorial candidate

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I think Dr. King would be very engaged in trying to work in the education sphere because that is the way today to close the vast gap between the rich and the poor. Civil rights can only go so far if you don't have education -- life skills, vocational skills, technical skills.

The public education system is under severe strain, contributing to a big discrepancy that's national in its scope. Education is the way to allow the kids an exciting chance to be a part of the social order.

-- Bill Strickland, 60, of the North Side, president and CEO, Manchester Bidwell Corp.

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I think that he would be very much involved in striving for greater economic equality in America.

I think by and large the civil-rights movement was successful, but we have a great deal of sedimentary racism, most notably that uncovered by Katrina.

I think Martin Luther King would still be working on Katrina, something that people have not been able to sustain interest in. He would have continued to arouse the country's conscience on how we can have such a major disparity among our citizens, and how we can be willing to spend literally trillions of dollars for justice elsewhere, in Iraq, but raise considerably less money to address problems like Katrina in our own country.

-- Larry E. Davis, 61, of Highland Park, dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work

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There is still a lack of minority-owned businesses. The strength of a community is in its finances. And that still needs to be built.

Years ago, when they built the arena, I was a teeny kid, but many people said that that destroyed the Hill. Today I am sure that is one of the things Dr. King would encourage: building business and fostering ownership. One of the ways this happens is, obviously, a multi-step process through education -- for many of us, education changed what we can accomplish, dream about, reach for.

-- Patrice King Brown, 53, of Gibsonia, KDKA anchor

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Dr. King would be upset about two burning issues that face America today.

No. 1 would be the war. He made a speech a year before his death in 1967 where he said a country that spends more on instruments of destruction for war than it does on social uplift within its own borders is a country that's headed for its own doom. He would be really concerned about the war-like nature of the United States. The things he saw in 1968 in Vietnam have not changed. Only the geography has changed. It has gone to Iraq and Iran.

Second, he would be upset that some of our young black people have missed so much of what he stood for and have now turned upon one another and are doing a better job on each other than the Klan.

He would continue to prick the moral conscience of the leaders of this country, and prick the moral conscience of the young black people of this country who have too quickly forgotten the history of this country in the generation that he lived, and all that people like him went through to give them the freedoms and rights and responsibilities that they have. They don't understand what we went through to get there. I don't want to beat up our young people, but I'm distressed at where they are in terms of killing one another.

-- Chris Moore, 59, of Stanton Heights, talk-show host for WQED-TV, KDKA-AM and WPXI-TV

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I think the first thing Dr. King would be concerned about is employment and the second is education. Third, he would be extremely disappointed in the process we've made in equal access, equity, justice and the elimination of racism -- very, very disappointed.

Look at this university and the absence of African-American students. Years ago, the university was asked to bring in 300 average students and set up a structure to support them, and that structure is completely gone. ... I don't know what their SAT scores were, but I know they've got good Ph.Ds from good universities.

We have not removed the barriers, and the most important barrier is education.

His voice may have been gentler than mine, but he insisted on education, employment, equal access and equity before the law. I really believe he thought the war was won. I did, too.

-- Dr. Vernell A. Lillie, 76, of East Liberty, founder and producing director of Kuntu Repertory Theatre and professor emerita of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh

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He would want people to stop focusing on the color of each other's skin and start dealing with the very real socioeconomic injustices that exist in our society. Bridging that gap is how we will achieve Dr. King's dream.

-- Rich Fitzgerald, 48, of Squirrel Hill,Allegheny County Council president

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First, I think he would applaud the incredible progress that African-Americans have made in all walks of life, and the realization of what may have seemed impossible at the time of his assassination in 1968. He would at the same time be disappointed that the very same issues -- inequality, income disparity, self-destruction -- continue to divide us as a people and as races. I think his philosophy of nonviolence and his penchant to walk into the breach and to speak about what's wrong and how to fix it would give him a lot to talk about. He would talk about being in Iraq and how we should not be and about inequality here in this country.

-- Oliver W. Byrd, 58, of Point Breeze, an executive at The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and chairman of the boards of the Multicultural Arts Initiative and the August Wilson Center

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Certainly, Dr. King would continue his consistent concern for social justice. He would also continue with an advocacy for the nation's poor. Toward the end of his life, his concern became more and more for the nation's poor of all races. There are some issues on which he would certainly be on the front lines. One is education. ... The most common grade given to an African-American in America is an F. I think Dr. King would also encourage African-Americans to participate in the political process.

I think that Dr. King would be trying to lead an inter-racial campaign for equity and justice.

African-Americans in Pittsburgh are not only doing badly as a group, they're doing badly in relation to African-Americans in other cities.

Certainly, as a preacher, I believe he would be emphasizing the nature of the African-American family.

And certainly, I believe he would still be an activist. I believe he would probably be speaking out against the war in Iraq.

-- The Rev. Ricky V. Burgess, 50, of North Point Breeze, Pittsburgh city councilman

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Stop gangs and drugs. It's [still] segregated but not by race but gang colors.

-- Dasha Walker, 19, of Manchester

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If Rev. Dr. King were alive today, I believe he would first give thanks to the God he serves, attesting to the visions and dream he'd foreseen in times past come to fruition -- overcoming segregation and racial strife to gain freedom and equality not just for people of color, but for all.

My life has shown this great dream. Being a woman of color in the industry I'm in, I see the undercurrents of racial residue. Over 40 years ago, a young woman of color would not have conjured the thought of being a prominent figure of beauty to be represented publicly, owning her own business and home and living next door to another race of people, to say the least.

-- Miyoshi Anderson of Blackridge, fashion model, actress and entrepreneur

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He'd probably be on the one hand delighted and on the other hand saddened. He'd be delighted about the advances in our world. Think about where we are with the presidential race with a woman and an African-American on the Democratic side.

He'd be delighted about the end of apartheid in South Africa.

But he'd be saddened, I think, by the destruction of the environment, and by the violence and terrorism in our communities, our country and the world.

-- George Miles, 66, of Oakland, WQED Multimedia president and CEO

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I believe Dr. King would remind us of where we came from, remind us of who we are and remind us of what still needs to be accomplished to make his dream transform completely into reality. Dr. King was uniquely gifted not just to stir the masses, but to help people clearly understand their role in aggressively confronting issues challenging our society. That same gift is needed today.

-- Neil A. Barclay, president and CEO, August Wilson Centerfor African American Culture

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Martin Luther King Jr. would still be a champion of the underdog. I think his commitment to freedom, justice and equality would still be the focus of his message to us.

-- Bill Robinson, 66, of the Hill District, Allegheny County councilman

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The same things he did back then. We're still having the same exact problems. Everything he was speaking about then, we're still fighting for today.

-- Tramainne Boxley, 24, of the North Side, an accountingstudent at the Everest Institute

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Cry.

[Also] I think he would probably be supporting Barack Obama for president of the United States. I think he would feel it's time for an African-American to hold America's highest post.

-- Tonya Payne, early 40s, of the Hill District, Pittsburgh city councilwoman

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It is my belief that if Dr. Martin Luther King were living today he would want to see progress in all of our minority communities, particularly those that have been disenfranchised over the last 30 years. I'm sure he would be excited to talk about the opportunities that exist in the Hill District and why it is important to ensure that a grocery store comes to that community. He would say, "Work together, fight together, live together, but most importantly, come together for a common cause to make a difference in this community and others in Pittsburgh.

-- Howard B. Slaughter Jr., 50,of Penn Hills, CEO of Landmarks Community Capital Corp.

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If he were alive today, Martin Luther King Jr. would:

CELEBRATE how much of his "dream" has come true in this country.

Be CONCERNED at how much of his dream remains unfulfilled.

Continue to CHAMPION the cause of millions ... and make his entire "dream" come true.

-- Andrew Stockey, 39, of Washington County, WTAE-TV morning anchor