UPDATED: 5:50 a.m., Jan. 17, 2022:

As the saying goes, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. And sometimes there are photos of people who have spoken thousands of words that can leave the viewer speechless.

In this case, both things can be right as the nation celebrates the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. federal holiday that lands on the third Monday of January every year.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day was signed into law in 1983 when it was opposed by Republican senators like John McCain. It ultimately went into effect in 1986. However, the day wasn’t observed in all 50 states until the year 2000.

MORE: How Much Have Black People Really Progressed Since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Death?

There is still much more work to move Dr. King’s legacy forward. He famously said in 1967, “But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the ebullience of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”

Decades later, not much has changed. John Light, for the Bill Moyers Report, wrote, “Take a look at these charts about American poverty from King’s day through today using data from the U.S. Census Bureau,” Light said reflecting in 2013 on King’s analysis conditions in 1967. “When King delivered his Two Americas speech, a household in the top five percent income bracket was at least six times wealthier than a household in the bottom twenty percent. Since the late 1960s, the rich have been growing wealthier far more quickly than the poor.”

A 2017 Washington Post report on Federal Reserve data found that Black families and Latino families made significant economic progress from 2013 to 2016, compared to other demographic groups during that three-year period. However, that didn’t mean that minorities closed the wealth gap.

Federal Reserve economists explained that the wealth increase for Blacks and Latinos stemmed from the fact that they had far less wealth compared to Whites. Consequently, even small increases in minority wealth appeared disproportionately large. The median net worth of white households was $171,000. For Black and Latinos households, the median net worth was below $21,000.

In addition, being in the middle of the deadly coronavirus pandemic only increases the strain on many Americans who do not have the privilege of earning a living wage.

Therefore, in honor of MLK’s life and holiday, here are 10 iconic pictures to underscore the civil rights icon’s brave determination to pave the way for each of us to enjoy a freer existence than he did.