MOSES LAKE - Almost 50 years since his most famous speech, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream still lives on. The Grace Harvest Church in Moses Lake held the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Monday night, honoring his lasting legacy.

An emotional and passionate recital of King's "I Have a Dream speech" by the Rev. Plasido Lindsey highlighted the celebration.

The annual celebration has been held in Moses Lake for more than 30 years.

"I appreciate seeing such a diverse group of people here," said Charlie Jones, chairman of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee.

Maryamu Eltayed-Givens, the keynote speaker for the event and education coordinator for the committee, remembers noticing a street during a trip to Cuba named after King.

"Dr. King is an international hero," Eltayed-Givens said. "He is known because he is a man of peace."

Eltayed-Givens said she was shocked the celebration has been held for so long in Moses Lake.

"Who would believe that a small city in the Northwest with less than 300 black people would unite a city of almost 21,000 to celebrate a black leader who was slain?"

Eltayed-Givens also runs the Harambee Children's Theater and worked with homeless and traumatized children in Seattle.

Other entertainment included a song from the Voces Celestiales Choir and the Say Yes Lord Choir. Poems were read by fourth-grader Iasis Grandlund and sixth-grader Jasmine Lewis, remembering King and looking ahead. The two students were chosen as winners of a school essay contest.

The audience also joined in for a congregational song, led by Deborah Shabeed.

The event was part of a weekend celebration that included a pastor appreciation banquet Saturday night at the Moses Lake Event Center.