Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

Franklin McCain, bowing his head in prayer during a speech Monday to alumni from North Carolina A&T, was one of four students in 1960 to initiate a lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro, N.C. McCain spoke Monday at the Hotel Roanoke.

Members of the Angelic Voices vocal group from Pilgrim Baptist Church in Roanoke perform during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration at the Hotel Roanoke. The group sang before a speech by an alumni association's keynote speaker.

Ever the proud radical, even in retirement and speaking to a decidedly middle-class audience Monday, Franklin McCain spoke of battles yet to be fought in the name of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

McCain talked at the Hotel Roanoke to alumni of North Carolina A&T State University who gathered for their 12th annual breakfast to honor King. McCain roused the crowd, saying King's most famous line, "I have a dream," is popular in part because it's a "nonthreatening sound bite" that "doesn't require action."

The issues of high unemployment among blacks, second-rate public schools in minority neighborhoods and the shortage of financing for black entrepreneurs are still with us, he said.

Still, so much has changed since the alumni's 11th gathering, said Carolyn Harris, the group's treasurer, who choked up during an interview while discussing the impact of Barack Obama's election to the presidency. "Now to see the fruit of Dr. King's work, it's just so momentous. It's making us all have gleeful hearts."

A year from now, she said, "I would love to have President Obama himself come."

McCain pleased this year's turnout of about 400 by turning his attention to the future and helping the new president: "He's going to have a short honeymoon. Not everybody loves him, and not everybody agrees with him."

McCain, 67, is no stranger to disagreement. On Feb. 1, 1960, he was one of four black college students to sit at a segregated lunch counter at the Woolworth restaurant in Greensboro, N.C., at a time when blacks there had to stand and eat.

The next day, 28 students took part in the sit-in at Woolworth; on the third day, 300 activists were involved. The total eventually grew to about 1,000 participants.

The protest, which fueled similar acts elsewhere, became a hallmark of the American civil rights movement.

Sit-ins and the "freedom riders" who packed into buses and journeyed to protest at segregation hot spots are for many a distant memory. They remain alive mainly as history lessons to teenagers such as the Angelic Voices vocal group from Pilgrim Baptist Church in Roanoke, who sang before McCain's speech.

McCain, who went on from his firebrand days to a successful career as a marketing executive for a chemical company, prefers to look ahead. Against the backdrop of a giant photo of Obama opposite one of King, McCain said the election of a black president, while a huge gain in the fight for racial equality, also throws down a gauntlet for other blacks.

"The hard work is just about to begin, and he needs us," McCain said. Specifically he urged blacks to be active in civic affairs between elections -- volunteering in public schools and attending city council meetings on everyday issues such as zoning and taxes.

Perhaps none of that will seem as heroic as sit-ins or freedom riding, he said, but exercising hard-won civil rights is an unending responsibility. "You need to get a pass for the bus because you need to stay on the bus."