Paula Hill, foreground, participates in her first Martin Luther King Jr. march Sunday in Jeanerette. The event attracted about 35 people. - Patrick Flanagan / The Daily Iberian

JEANERETTE — Instead of remembering the dream of Martin Luther King Jr., about 35 Jeanerette residents tried to live the slain civil rights activist’s vision of equality at a commemorative march Sunday in Jeanerette.

Wearing a hat emblazoned with the name of President Barack Obama, Jeanerette native Edward Lewis, 63, said he believes about 75 percent of King’s dream has been realized.

“We have the motivation now to get to 100 percent,” Lewis said in reference to the milestone election of the country’s first black president in 2008. “By working together, we’ll get there.”

Another Jeanerette native, Tim Declouet, a 61-year-old Vietnam veteran, said he thinks the country still has a way to go before fully realizing what King had envisioned for all people living in America.

“I think we still have a long way to go,” he said while waiting for the march to begin. “But it’ll happen with unity and with equal education and economics.”

For Charles Williams, a Jeanerette native who represents District 12 on the Iberia Parish Council, moving forward with King’s dream into the 21st century will be the responsibility of the younger generations, not just black, but of all races.

Williams, 60, who also is the president of the Magnificent Men Civic and Social Club, which organized Sunday’s march, said focus is key to making King’s vision fully realized.

“It’s so easy to hate, but love overcomes all hatred,” Williams said. “We as a country have differences, but at the same time we have to move forward and focus on the betterment of all the people living in the United States.”

Jeanerette native Larry Rader, 58, said he believes too many people focus on the past.

“Martin Luther King’s dream is here — in the present,” Rader said. “We need to start looking forward and realize that there’s a little bit of Martin Luther King in each and every one of us.”

Once the march started, people, both black and white, processed down Martin Luther King Boulevard in Jeanerette, in a united fashion, singing an old spiritual sung by the civil rights activists of the 1950s and 60s, “We Shall Overcome.”