Delta Civil Rights Legacy Trail tracks historic sites of the civil rights movement through Pine Bluff

PINE BLUFF -- The Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday on Monday shines a spotlight each January on Black American history and the continuing efforts to achieve racial equality. In Pine Bluff, that focus includes the fact that King delivered the commencement address in 1958 at what is now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He was then a 29-year-old activist beginning to build his enduring stature as a leader of the civil-rights movement. The former Hazzard Gymnasium, where King spoke to the graduates of then-named Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical & Normal College (AM&N), is one of 22 locations spotlighted on Pine Bluff's Delta Civil Rights Legacy Trail.