Hundreds wait in line to get into the Steel Yard Stadium for the memorial service for Michael Jackson in Gary, Ind., Friday, July 10, 2009. (AP Photo/John Smierciak)
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Michael Jackson's boyhood hometown bade farewell to the King of Pop on Friday with a celebration of his life and music.
More than 6,000 people showed up for an upbeat memorial event that featured performers singing and dancing to his hits, video montages of Jackson and comments from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Gary's mayor and people who knew Michael Jackson when his family lived in Gary.
Mayor Rudy Clay said Jackson had made the city known worldwide and told the crowd that he has moved on to a better place.
"He's going to put on those golden slippers and he's going to dance all over God's heaven," Clay said to the more than 6,000 people gathered at the Steel Yard, Gary's minor league baseball park.
Clay later unveiled a 7-foot-high granite slab with an etching of Jackson standing on his tiptoes with the words "King of Pop" and his birth date and death date. Clay said it would be the first item in a Jackson museum he hopes to see the city build.
People in the crowd said the celebration was fitting for the King of Pop.
"It brought back a lot of memories," said Betty Nicholson, 52, of Gary, who said she used to perform at some of the same talent shows as Jackson and his brothers. "The show was fantastic."
Organizers said more than 30 members of Jackson's family attended the event. Joe Jackson, a former crane operator at nearby U.S. Steel, arrived surrounded by security just as Jesse Jackson was finishing speaking.
In his remarks, Jesse Jackson praised Jackson's parents for the job they did raising their family while living in a small two-bedroom house in a working-class neighborhood.
Kellee Patterson, the first black Miss Indiana in 1971, was the first singer on stage and performed "Gone Too Soon," a song Jackson recorded in memory of Ryan White. White, who died in 1990, contracted HIV through a blood transfusion to treat his hemophilia. He drew national attention in the 1980s when as a 13-year-old he was banned from a school near Kokomo. Jackson became friends with White.
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