This Monday, the nation observes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Day honoring the slain civil rights icon and the many others who joined him in the fight for equality.

That includes Charles Neblett of Russellville, Kentucky, who has led a life of activism.

He joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the early 1960s.

Neblett was also a founding member of the Freedom Singers who traveled the country using music and song as a form of peaceful protest.

He says despite numerous arrests and beatings during his activism, nonviolence was important to him.

I was getting beaten one time on the street and cover yourself up so you didn't get hit in the head.

So you get knocked out.

And I looked up and I saw my attacker and it wasn't from here.

Something had taken him over.

I said, My God, this is not the guy, man.

So it's taken him over.

And I said, I don't want to be like that.

Now, but met and marched with Dr. King several times.

The Freedom Singers performed at the March on Washington in 1963 and at the White House in 2011.

As you see pictured.

Charles Neblett is scheduled to give the keynote address next Wednesday morning at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Unity Walk celebration in Russellville.