King Birthday Marked by Pleas for Harmony : Civil rights: Speeches and sermons note city’s ethnic conflict and urge others to continue the slain leader’s work.

More than 400 people--blacks, Latinos, Koreans, Catholics, Muslims and Jews--joined hands in a church hall Wednesday and celebrated their diversity with songs and sermons to commemorate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.

Songs of peace in Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic and even rap spilled out of the auditorium of Trinity Baptist Church on Jefferson Boulevard, where the keynote speaker challenged the audience to “build a temple of respect for each other’s differences.”

After a year in Los Angeles punctuated by ethnic conflict and violence, the prayerful morning of inspirational words rejuvenated many in attendance. The event was among many celebrations, marches and speeches throughout the region as gatherings of hundreds honored what would have been the 63rd birthday of the slain civil rights leader.

“This is all very unifying for the community. It’s so good to see all the faith groups and races together,” said Dorothy Sima. “It makes me remember we are all one.”

The program was co-sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles.

During a sermon interrupted by applause and cheers, the Rev. Aidsand Wright-Riggins, executive director of the Board of National Ministries of the American Baptist Church, said that “racism is a cancer eating away at the soul of America and this year we saw it hellishly alive in Los Angeles.”

He urged the audience to be invigorated by the “glorious days” of the late 1950s and 1960s when King led the civil rights movement--the Montgomery bus boycott, voter registration drives in the deep South and the historic march on Washington in 1963 to demand equal justice for all citizens.

The nation’s ills of homelessness, racism, sexism and youth violence are the “outward reflection of our shoddy spiritual condition,” Wright-Riggins said, calling on the participants to stop hand-wringing and moving out of troubled neighborhoods and instead to “build centers for peace and justice.”

Joe R. Hicks, executive director of the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference chapter, said that the police beating of Rodney G. King and the shooting of a black teen-ager by a Korean-born grocer has increased ethnic fragmentation in Los Angeles.

“It’s been a real uncomfortable year,” Hick said. “But out of the struggle we must come together in this city and rebuild the movement of the people.”

Throughout Los Angeles County, others joined to honor King with marches, rallies and readings.

At USC, about 300 staff members and students rallied in the center of campus and listened to men’s basketball coach George Raveling describe his experience as a participant in the march on Washington. The crowd later walked to a King memorial plaque on campus.

In Long Beach, about 200 Navy personnel decided to honor King on his birthday rather than on next Monday’s federal holiday. They crowded into the chapel at the Long Beach Naval Station and listened to fellow staffers read King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The Jordan High School International Gospel Choir sang.

Elementary school students at Transfiguration School paraded around campus with banners reading “Wake Up and Stop the Violence” and “Stop Gang Wars,” 1992 themes they believe would have moved King into action.

“I think violence in L.A. right now is gangs, robberies, all the crime. I have to really think about the type of clothes I wear and where I go,” said Charles Davis, 13, of Baldwin Hills. “We will stop it by thinking of his dream of being in harmony with everyone.”

For 10-year-old Stacy Young, the King birthday party inspired thoughts of personal dreams.

“I want to be a doctor and I want to live in a place that is safe,” the Los Angeles girl said. “I think we can keep the dream alive by not joining gangs and shooting other people and by not stealing stuff.”