Members of the community celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy at a gala and dinner on Monday night.Â
The 38th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Gala and dinner was held at the Nugget by the Northern Nevada Black Cultural Awareness Society.
Dr. Angie Taylor, the lead gala event planner, says, "This event really does commemorate the dream of Dr. King and what he stood for. He stood for bringing people together, making sure everyone has an opportunity, and leaving nobody behind. This dinner is a really great picture of that. During a time when there seems to be so divisive in our country, our community is still sending a message that we want to come together."
Not to mention this event is the NNBCAS's primary fundraiser each year and has drawn upwards of 850 to 1,000 people over the years, including various local businesses.
"This is the engine that drives everything else that we do, from propping back up our youth programs—we have a lot more we want to get back into during our Juneteenth Celebration—to doing youth development and youth leadership; those things are really important for molding our culture and again doing it together."
At the gala, they highlighted their annual youth essay contest, where five students, ages elementary through college, were awarded cash prizes.
This year's keynote speaker was Haliday Douglas, the CEO of the St. Louis Educational Fund and a Harvard graduate who also has an organization that raises and reinvests community funds into impactful programming for public school students in St. Louis, Missouri.Â
Dr. Taylor also mentions, "This event, the theme, building a unified community. We build this thing together, and we can make all kinds of waves in a good way in our community despite what's going on all around us, right? Again, other places and so on, we can say nope, not here in Northern Nevada, we're unified, and we're going to do this thing together."
