HOUSTON -- A group of middle school students learned the importance of character on the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's death, KPRC Local 2 reported.

Students at Cullen Middle School watched King's "I Have a Dream" speech with Houston Independent School District Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra on Friday.

Saavedra said he wanted to honor King's legacy by instilling his message in eighth-graders at the school.

"It's a value system that young people build over many years, during their fundamental years," he said.

The lesson was an extension of the character education program in place at the school.

"I learned that character is everything," student Latrice Alexander said. "If you don't present yourself in a nice or a neat way, a lot of people are just going to overlook you. You just can't be out there doing whatever you can, or do whatever you want to do, because people are watching you everywhere you go. Your actions speak louder than your words."

King was killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968, while helping organize a strike by sanitation workers, then some of the poorest of the city's working poor.