On the day celebrating his father’s life and legacy, Martin Luther King III, his wife Andrea Waters King and daughter Yolanda Renee King gathered with social justice leaders and changemakers Monday at the annual National Action Network (NAN) MLK Day Awards Breakfast.
Hosted at the Mayflower Hotel in Northwest D.C., the breakfast honored several modern freedom fighters and encouraged guests to continue the slain civil rights leader’s fight for justice.
“Somehow humankind has to come together. That’s what dad and mom would have wanted, King III said. “I guess this actual day they are looking down and saying ‘What are you all going to do? Are we going with thermometers or thermostats?’ A thermometer, Dad said, is a great device but it basically records the temperature. But there is another device called a thermostat that regulates the temperature. We have to decide whether we are going to record and get along, or whether we are going to regulate goodness and justice and righteousness for humankind.”
With heavyweight honorees such as Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and citizen artists Taraji P. Henson and Phylicia Rashad, the packed event was a moment to remember King’s life and honor those who are continuing to work toward a stronger, more equitable nation and world.
“What a wonderful time to be together as it falls on what would have been the 95th birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. We could not have thought to be in any other place than with the people in this room,” Waters King told the crowd. “The people in this room deal every single day with the facts of what is going on in our nation, and the fact right now is that we are a little further away from the dream. The fact is that it’s harder to vote than when our daughter was born.”
The breakfast offered a meal with a message.
“We are not simply celebrating Dr. King’s legacy this year but coming together to publicly vow to protect it from those who wish to undo his work,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of NAN in a statement.
In addition to continuing King’s legacy, which Sharpton talked about during the breakfast, honoring the awardees was a key focus of the event.
MLK Day Visionary Award recipients included Moore, the first Black governor of Maryland; award-winning actress Henson, president and founder of the Boris Lawrence Henson (BLH) Foundation, and Tracie Jade Jenkins, executive director of the BLH Foundation.
“In our state, we have made our North Star very clear,” said Moore when accepting his Visionary Award. “We are going to focus on work. wages and wealth for all of our citizens and not just some. We are going to be the first state in this country to end the racial wealth gap.”
CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. received the MLK Day Labor Leader of the Year Award. The MLK Day Youth Award was given to Deyona Burton. Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA), received the MLK Day Education Award.
National Action Network bestowed Rashad, dean of the Howard University Chadwick Boseman College of Fine Arts, with the MLK Day Lifetime Service of Excellence in the Arts Award.
“As a young child growing up in Houston, Texas, during a time of legal segregation in this country, there was one thing that became apparent to me,” Rashad said. “Every action performed with the intention of service bears fruit, not only for oneself, but for others.”
Service to others was not just part of Rashad’s message. Sharpton, King III and other members of the King family emphasized service as a key component of the civil rights leader’s work.
King III said the King Center and the NFL were collaborating to launch a service initiative, where young people would be involved in 100 million hours of service by his “dad’s 100th birthday — five years from now.”
King III’s daughter, Yolanda, also pushed the message of serving others.
“As we reflect as a country, we need to get everyone involved in service,” said Yolanda. ”Service is great because anyone can do it. That’s why we are launching this program. We are putting this in the curriculum.”
