BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Attorney General Loretta Lynch, in her final speech as head of the Justice Department, highlighted the Obama administration’s efforts to advance justice and said worries of difficult days ahead should be a call for action, not despair.

Speaking in Birmingham just days before leaving office with the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, Lynch praised the work of President Obama and acknowledged — without mentioning Trump by name— some voters’ anxieties for the future.

‘‘I know that while our accomplishments should make us proud, they must not make us complacent,’’ she said. “We cannot stop. We have to work.

“I know that in our pursuit of a brighter future, we still face headwinds. We still face oppositions. We see it. Waves of hatred, waves of intolerance and injustice that are still blowing in this country, and they seem to grow stronger the more that we achieve,’’ Lynch said.

Lynch took the pulpit of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church for a celebration ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The church was the site of a 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing that killed four girls just weeks after King delivered his ‘‘I Have A Dream’’ speech. The Obama administration this week named the church and other Birmingham civil rights landmarks as a national monument.

Lynch drew parallels between the church bombing that killed the girls and the massacre of nine people at a Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston, S.C., in 2015. She said 50 years after the civil rights movement there are ‘‘new attempts to erect barriers to the voting booth.’’

‘‘Fifty years after that we still see our fellow Americans targeted simply because of who they are — not only for their race, but for their religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity, as well,’’ Lynch said.

Lynch praised the work of the Obama administration and the Justice Department to urge community policing tactics, fight voting restrictions, and prosecute hate crimes.

Some in the predominantly African-American crowd said they were openly mourning the end of the Obama presidency.

‘‘I cried. I cried. I never thought in my lifetime I would live to see the day that there was an African-American president,’’ Tara Banks said.

Banks brought her granddaughter Kimorah Thomas to the church on her eighth birthday to learn about King’s legacy and hear Lynch, the first female African-American to hold the post of US attorney general.

Lynch said she recognized the anxiety that some have about what is ahead, referencing Trump without saying his name.

‘‘And I have seen the fear that, with the turn of the electoral wheel, so many of us will be seen as children of a lesser God. I have seen all that. . . . I’ve heard you,’’ Lynch said.

But Lynch added she has also seen the determination of men and women dedicated to the future of the country.

“Yes, these are challenging times and yes, we undoubtedly have more challenges to come. But many of our greatest strides, in equal rights, in human rights and civil rights have come after heartbreaking loss. . . . We are Americans and we have always pushed forward,’’ Lynch said.

In Arkansas, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is focusing attention on efforts by the governor to change the state’s practice of honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee on the same day.

Every third Monday in January, Arkansas state offices are closed in observance of the shared birthdays of King and Lee.

Only three states commemorate both men on the same day, a practice that critics say hurts Arkansas’ reputation.

The Republican governor has revived an effort to remove Lee from the holiday, but he faces resistance from opponents who complain the move belittles the state’s Confederate heritage and from black lawmakers worried about a plan to set aside another day to honor Lee.

‘‘I think this provides our state an opportunity to bridge divides,’’ said Governor Asa Hutchinson, who has vowed since early last year to make the change, which is part of his agenda for the legislative session that began last week.

Arkansas has had a holiday in honor of Lee since 1947 and one for King since 1983. That year, agencies required state employees to choose which two holidays they wanted off: King’s birthday on Jan. 15, Lee’s birthday on Jan. 19, or the employee’s birthday. In 1985, the Legislature voted to combine holidays. Alabama and Mississippi also honor the men on the same day.

Hutchinson’s idea is not new. Two years ago, a similar proposal repeatedly failed before a House committee.

The renewed debate comes amid a nationwide reevaluation of monuments and symbols linked to the Civil War, the Confederacy, and slavery.

After the 2015 fatal shooting of nine black church members by a white gunman who had posed with the Confederate flag in photos, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley called for the flag’s removal from the Statehouse. In Alabama, Governor Robert Bentley took down four Confederate flags on the Capitol grounds.

The King Day proposal in Arkansas has drawn the ire of groups that say removing Lee from the holiday is an affront to people whose ancestors served the Confederacy. In 2015, opponents regularly filled a House committee room to speak out against the idea.

‘‘It’s like telling our Hispanic neighbors that we’re not going to do Cinco de Mayo. It’s like telling the Irish we’re not going to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day,’’ said Robert Edwards, commander of the Arkansas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. ‘‘I think it’s just a racist bill.’’