DALTON, Ga. — Faith, courage and hard work.

Martin Luther King Jr. exemplified all of those virtues and without them he and other leaders of the civil rights movement would not have succeeded, said Whitfield County NAACP President Michael Kelley II.

“I think sometimes people forget what he had to overcome,” Kelley said. “He was threatened. He had his house bombed.”

Kelley was the keynote speaker Saturday night at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Banquet at Dalton’s Mack Gaston Community Center.

“This banquet and all of this weekend’s events honoring Dr. King represent hope and the chance his life provided us,” said Rick Willis, interim chairman of the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee. “It’s also about service and giving back. His life was about service. And our theme is year is overcoming obstacles and moving forward. That’s what Dr. King did every day of his involvement and leadership of the civil rights movement.”

Dalton City Council member Tyree Goodlett said he hopes young people learn about King’s life.

“A lot of the good things we have today, we owe to Dr. King, and the sacrifices he made,” he said. “But he had a vision of the different races coming together, and he fought for the rights of everyone.”

King did not live to see many of the triumphs of the civil rights movement, and he seemed to know that he would not.

In a speech the day before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968, King said: “I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.”

Kelley said King’s vision and faith sustained him.

“The Bible tells us that where there is no vision, the people perish,” Kelley said. “King had a vision, and it’s one that is still important.”

Glenda Shropshire Thomas received the Bishop C. H Ellison Award and the late Whitfield County Chief Magistrate Judge Haynes Townsend was honored with the Mayor’s Community Service Award.