After tumultuous year, Dallas community leaders look at MLK holiday as a chance to renew focus on the way forward The pandemic, police brutality and political unrest have shone a light on inequities but also a path to addressing them Rev. Peter Johnson poses for a portrait in front of a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center on Thursday in Dallas.(Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer) The Rev. Peter Johnson cries often these days. Johnson usually spends this time of year catching up with friends across the country who, like him, fought on the front lines of the civil rights movement alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.