In voices loud and soft, shaky and sure, the students strolled to the microphone and opened the door on their encounters with race and gender differences. Behind them, a grainy black and white image of Martin Luther King Jr., robed in black vestments, stood watch.

	John Heller, Post-Gazette University of Pittsburgh student Edward Smith, center, 21, a senior from Jonesboro, Ga., marches with other students through the Pitt campus to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day yesterday in Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity's sixth annual candle light vigil honoring the slain civil rights leader. Click photo for larger image.

The students were winners in the sixth annual King Day Writing Awards, sponsored by the creative writing program at Carnegie Mellon University. In their essays and poems, the students give voice to all manner of bias -- past and present -- based on race, gender and sexual identity.

In one, a young white girl takes on the role of Rosa Parks, the tired but brave black seamstress who refused to move to back of the bus; a young man gives breath to the fears of a girl 6 and then 16; in another, a daughter laments her own family's expectations of black-only suitors.

"There are all kinds of prejudices," said Terrance Hayes, a poet and CMU writing professor who organized this year's contest along with this colleague, Jane McCafferty.

"I think Martin Luther King would see them all as civil rights issues," said Hayes, who added the King holiday is an appropriate time to talk about differences. "It's a time to make conversations happen."

It was a day for action as well as dialogue.

Hundreds of people fanned out across the region yesterday to march for justice, to volunteer, to celebrate the "drum major for justice." From campus to churches, they sang, painted senior citizens centers and used the time to pay tribute to the civil right's hero, the first black man in America to be honored with a national holiday.

King would have been 76 on Saturday. He was assassinated in 1968 at age 39.

At the YMCA's Center for Race Relations, a breakfast in the North Hills focused on curing the health care system of discrimination.

A Black Catholic group sponsored a blood drive at St. Benedict the Moor Church, Hill District, the same spot where People Against Police Violence launched a snowy afternoon march to remember King and protest against police abuse.

As night fell, members of local chapters of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, the group that King joined as a young man, lit their candles in front of a darkened Cathedral of Learning to recall the legacy of their fraternity brother.

Earlier in the day, at the Bradley Center in Mt. Lebanon, six young people from Duquesne left their warm beds to paint and spruce up the former orphanage, which now cares for mentally disabled and developmentally delayed children and their families. The youth worked with four adults from the Federal Home Loan Bank.

They were part of 300 volunteers from America's Promise, a national effort hoping to link youth with service in safe places, and Pittsburgh Cares, a Downtown volunteer outreach group, who took a day on, not off, to remember King. The volunteers went to 16 service sites throughout the county.

At Global Links, volunteers boxed medical supplies to be sent overseas; at the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank, they repacked food donations; at the Jubilee Kitchen, they cooked and served food to the homeless.

"Our philosophy is to give back to community," said Benjamin Pegg, from Robert Morris University, which served as the command center for volunteers. "We believe in putting different people side by side. We think it creates a little better impact."

Dozens of area businesses got in on the act. One was Duquesne Light, where 45 employees -- from line workers to a vice president -- volunteered at six senior citizens centers in Allegheny and Beaver counties.

Had he lived, King would be a senior, and Duquesne Light employees wanted to make the connection with those who would have been the civil rights leader's contemporaries.

At most centers, the volunteers were folded into one-on-one conversations and helped with bingo and arts and crafts. At the Stephen Foster Adult Day Care in Lawrenceville, about 10 volunteers were painting.

There are lots of reasons employees volunteer, said Pam Coates, manager of community relations for Duquesne Light. "Many see it as an opportunity to commemorate King; an opportunity to give back to community and back to seniors, those who've made strides," she said. "For others, it's a personal connection because our parents are getting older."

At the CMU essay presentations, Joe DeVries, a senior Spanish major, was making connections, too. He won first-place for his poem on how a son's ride with his dad becomes a lesson in home-grown prejudice.

"I entered the contest because there's such a huge problem with hate and with lack of understanding between the different groups."

"I'm glad there's a holiday," said DeVries. "The world needs Martin Luther King, and it needs to listen to more people like him."