KEYPORT — The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born more than 75 years ago.

He organized the Montgomery bus boycott 50 years ago.

And he died nearly 40 years ago.

But the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is about the future, not the past, Kenneth Miller asserted Thursday morning at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division’s annual event honoring the civil rights leader.

“You got here but that’s not the end,” Miller told the more than 150 people who gathered for the remembrance. “It’s about what you’re going to be doing for the future … As we continue to grow our wealth and affluence, we take a lot of things for granted and we forget the struggles we had to go through to get there.”

Miller, the assistant deputy chief of Naval operations for warfare requirements and programs in Washington, D.C., was invited to speak Jan. 13 by the Keyport Diversity Council. The council’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. event stresses the base’s annual charge to its employees to make the federal holiday, “A day on, not a day off.”

Commander Steven L. Stevens, Executive Officer of Naval Base Kitsap, told the group that the history of the civil rights movement is constantly ongoing. He reminded them of important dates such as Truman’s Executive Order 991 in 1948 which offered equal rights to men of all races in the U.S. military, the period of great social changes in the 1950s and 1960s and the creation of the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday in 1983.

“Remember where you were at during these key events,” Stevens told group. “Just remember. Don’t let it die. Educate your kids. Re-educate yourselves — whatever it takes.”

Miller, who grew up in Columbia, Miss., recalled first-hand the struggles that people of color went through during his own lifetime. He was the first African-American in his town to apply for a library card and at the age of 13 or 14, he used to go to a local shop every Sunday to pick up a copy of the New York Times. He said the white men in the business would always stop and stare at him as if he had no right to shop there.

“Most of you are too young to remember when a person of color couldn’t go to the same theater, restaurant or cigar bar as a white person,” he commented. “You can’t forget where we were.”

Besides remembering history, Miller said he believes it is learning lessons from history that enables a society to move forward. He likened the civil rights movement to another fight for equality and justice that he believes the United States is fighting right now — the war on terrorism.

Miller’s office is located in the Pentagon, about 100 paces from where the airliner struck the building on Sept. 11, 2001. He said he was shaken by the experience of living through the attack but a chaplain friend put it in perspective for him.

“He said, ‘Brother Miller, it just wasn’t your time. God has things of you to do and you’ve just got to keep doing what you’re doing,’” Miller relayed. “This is not as much about the past as it is about the future. But the future is not about everybody else, it is about you and what you can accomplish.”

If anything, living through Sept. 11 taught him that history contains the past, present and future — not just things that have happened. He said the struggle for freedom, justice and equality is something that is taking place in the here and now and not just in Martin Luther King’s lifetime. He challenged the North Kitsap community to remember on Monday’s holiday that it is the choices they make today that will determine whether or not King’s dream stays alive.

“I could spend a lot of time talking about the legend but I’d rather talk about how we as a people better ourselves and our Navy,” Miller said. “Sometimes I think we lose sight of the fact that we have decisions we can make, too. I hope when this is through, you will remember this day. I know I will.”