Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN) plans to honor MLK Day with a celebration of individuals who have been promoting the kind of progressive ideas the 1960s-era civil rights leader stood for.
“Dr. King’s birthday,” Sharpton said in a statement to the AmNews, “is a reminder not only of the work he did while he was alive, but the journey that has continued in the nearly 56 years since he was killed. Our Washington, D.C. breakfast will put a particular emphasis on the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, discuss how the tenets of that legislation remain under attack, and recognize those who carry on his legacy. Then, in the Village of Harlem, we will bring together New York’s top leaders to discuss what policies, investments, and programs must be built up to ensure equality in the nation’s biggest city. With DEI under immense attack, we must treat King Day as a continuation, not just a celebration, of his work.”
NAN is scheduled to grant awards to several people who have taken on roles that are helping change the nation. The young civic activist Deyona Burton will receive the MLK Day Youth Award; actress Phylicia Rashad who is dean of Howard University’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts will be awarded the MLK Day Lifetime Service of Excellence in the Arts Award; and Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, will receive the MLK Day Education Award.
Among other NAN awardees, actress Taraji P. Henson will receive an MLK Day Visionary Award. Henson has recently become a strong voice on issues of pay equity for Black actresses. She told the reporter Gayle King that there remain pointed pay disparities for actors, based on their race. “It seems every time I do something and break another glass ceiling, when it’s time to renegotiate, I’m at the bottom again like I never did what I just did, and I’m tired. I’m tired,” she told King. “It wears on you. What does that mean? What is that telling me? If I can’t fight for them coming up behind me then what the f– am I doing?”
Claude Cummings Jr., who this past July 12 was elected to serve as president of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), the D.C.-based AFL-CIO-affiliated union that represents people who work in media, tech, telecommunications, public service, education, and related fields, will be receiving the Labor Leader of the Year Award.
When he was elected president, Cummings, the first person of African descent to ever lead the CWA, talked about his hesitancy in even competing for the leadership role. “There were times when I would interview, and I would see someone, and they would say to me ‘What about the way you look––and you’re running for president?’ I said, ‘Well, I got up this morning, I looked in the mirror and I said, hell, I didn’t like the way I looked either––I looked a lot better 30 years ago––but I couldn’t do anything about it.“So it would be a lie to say this journey has been easy, but through it all my commitment to our union and to all of our members has never wavered, because CWA is my home. To it, I owe everything.
With every ounce of my being, I will continue to fight to protect and advance the values that make us who we are. Our values of community and solidarity are the foundation of our strength as a union, which is why at this very moment, we all have to commit to coming together as one union, one family, and together fight for what we collectively believe in. That I am Black may be historic in the eyes of others, but for CWA in District 6, … this milestone is just a continuation of our legacy of open-door opportunity for all, regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or other differences that may separate us but do not divide us.”
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore will be one of several recipients of an MLK Day Visionary Award. Moore is a former Oxford Rhodes Scholar who served as the CEO of the non-profit poverty-fighting Robin Hood Foundation from 2017 to 2021. As Maryland’s first Black governor, he was sworn into office with his wife, Dawn, holding a Bible once owned by Frederick Douglass.
When he delivered his inaugural address outside the State House in Annapolis, Moore said: “As I stand here today, looking out over Lawyers Mall, at the memorial to Justice Thurgood Marshall, it’s impossible not to think about our past and our path.
“We are blocks away from the Annapolis docks, where so many enslaved people arrived in this country against their will. And we are standing in front of a capitol building built by their hands. We have made uneven and unimaginable progress since then. It is a history created by generations of people whose own history was lost, stolen, or never recorded. And it is a shared history—our history—made by people who, over the last two centuries, regardless of their origin story to Maryland, fought to build a state, and a country, that works for everybody.”
Moore noted that his official portrait, and that of his lieutenant governor, Aruna Miller, who is of South Asian descent “are going to look a little different from the ones we’ve always seen in the capitol. But that’s not the point. This journey has never been about ‘making history.’ It is about marching forward.
“Today is not an indictment of the past; it’s a celebration of our future. And today is our opportunity to begin a future so bright, it is blinding. But only if we are intentional, inclusive, and disciplined in confronting challenges, making hard choices, and seizing the opportunity in front of us.”
NAN’s celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will commemorate the world-renowned activist’s 95th birthday.