Four decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, the streets, avenues, boulevards and highways that bear his name remain crossroads of the nation's past and future.

In Atlanta, not far from where King grew up and preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King Jr. Drive winds through the heart of the city. For 10 miles, the road dedicated in King's name in 1976 stretches past homes, schools, restaurants, liquor stores, strip malls, churches, barbershops, a roller-skating rink, boarded-up government flats and a gated apartment community, all the way to the city's downtown and its golden-domed Georgia Capitol building.