A program to celebrate the life and work of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be held Monday evening at Great Bend’s First Baptist Church.
The program will start at 6:30 p.m. at the church, 1600 19th St.  Host pastor is the Rev. Leroy Keith.
The guest speaker will be the Rev. Paul Rennels, pastor of Escue Chapel C.M.E. of Larned. The celebration will include vocal selections by the Escue Chapel C.M.E. choir.
Thelma Russi, Great Bend, will present a time line of major events in the life of Dr. King.
He was born Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Ga. He was presented the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 when he was 35 years old, making him the youngest person to receive the award at that time. King was fatally shot on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn.
Russi was a young adult living in Gary, Ind., during the 1960s, and remembers King coming to speak at a church there.
“We wanted to change things,” said Russi, who remembers King as someone who wanted justice for all of America. He talked about better wages and better working conditions.
“At that time we just looked up to him,” she said.
King’s most memorable speech, with the iconic words, “I have a dream,” came later. When Russi and others heard the words, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” they felt energized. “It was amazing,” she said.
But they also wondered if King would survive – or even expected to, when he said, “I’ve been to the mountaintop and I’ve seen the Promised Land. And I might not get there with you.”
“We were always just a little bit afraid for him,” Russi said. When King was assassinated, she said, “We all cried – like when President Kennedy was shot.”
The young people of the 1960s did not see the immediate changes they hoped for with their causes, Russi said. But things did change, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped blaze the path.
“I remember him as being someone  that changed the face of the nation,” Russi said.