Throughout the nation, most courts closed on Jan. 20 in honor of the federal Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday. As many legal professionals participated in community service to celebrate the occasion as “a day on” rather than a day off, a judge in Georgia engaged in his own unique tradition to help realize one of the late civil rights leader’s top goals.

King’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech outlined his vision for his children to live in a nation where they’d “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”