Living the Legacy 40 Years Later - washingtonpost.com

While bereaved rioters razed the District's U Street corridor after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968, Ronald Anderson was preparing for his graduation from Howard University's medical school a few blocks away.

The news of King's death left the young, black doctor more determined to walk boldly through doors that King and the civil rights movement had pried open. Like many in his class, Anderson, an ophthalmologist, would become the first African American hired for many of the jobs he had throughout his medical career.