RALEIGH - Pioneering civil rights journalist Chuck Stone called Friday for the creation in North Carolina of a center to honor Martin Luther King Jr.

Stone said a Martin Luther King Jr. School of Theology and Political Science would honor the slain civil rights leader's memory and make the state stand out in the nation. Stone was the keynote speaker at the 27th annual State Employees' Martin Luther King Jr. Day Observance at First Baptist Church in downtown Raleigh.

"A holiday is just one day," said Stone, who is now a professor emeritus at UNC-Chapel Hill's journalism school. "He deserves more than a day. He deserves a center to honor him every day."

Organizers say a local effort to open a Martin Luther King Jr. Center in downtown Raleigh is ongoing. Bruce Lightner, who is helping organize the project, said organizers hope to open it in 2010 as a tourist attraction which will include research on King's life along with artifacts.

Stone, 83, was one of King's close friends and confidants. He turned down King's offer to be the executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

A World War II veteran and member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, a black aviation unit, Stone after the war covered the civil rights movement as a reporter and editor at three African-American newspapers. He also served as an assistant to U.S. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

Stone later became a columnist and senior editor at the Philadelphia Daily News before joining UNC's Journalism School in 1991. He retired in 2005.

Gov. Mike Easley attended the event and introduced Stone as a "real American hero."