INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Thursday marked a monumental moment in American history as it was April 4, 1968 that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed by an assassin’s bullet in Memphis, Tennessee. We mark this day as a nation, and remember the loss of a titan of civil rights.

It was also a big day in Indianapolis, remembered for the city’s time in the spotlight that, too, helped shape American history.

Visitors flocked to the Kennedy King Memorial Intiative’s Cultural Visitors’ Center Thursday, its centerpiece, the sculpture of two extraordinary men that are linked by an extraordinary moment in American and Indianapolis history.

It was near that spot, 56 years ago, that New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy, brother of President John F. Kennedy, who was campaigning for president at the time, spoke to a crowd of unsuspecting people, telling them grim news.

He told the crowd that had gathered that night for his campaign stop that King, Jr. had been assassinated.

Indiana State Rep. Gregory Porter, D-Indianapolis, is chairman of the Kennedy King Memorial Initiative.

“(He) made the announcement to the crowd, ” Porter said in an interview with News 8. “Some people knew, some people did not. Some did not know if it was true or not.”

Porter, a teenager at the time, recalled his memories of the night.

“It was a night that was surreal,” Porter said. “It was a moment in time that we felt was going to be forever.”

Porter said the night still resonates in Indianapolis because not much had changed in the time since.

“We still have divisiveness in our community,” Porter said. “We still have prejudice. We still have people who don’t like individuals.”

The Kennedy King Memorial Initiative was created to preserve the memory of that moment of two men linked by the fundamental belief of equality, freedom, and tragedy.

It was just two months after Robert F. Kennedy’s speech that night that he, too, was assasinated in Los Angeles.

“We have to continue to talk about love over hate,” Porter said. “What we want our young people to understand.”

The Kennedy King Memorial Intiative held a commorative event Thursday which included sppeches and deep reflections on progress that still needs to be made, according to a news release.

The theme is “Still We Reach: Together We Can.”