by Mell P
The Sheraton New York Times Square became hallowed ground on April 8 as the National Action Network convened its annual Keepers of the Dream Awards. It was a night that refused to be ceremonial. From the first remarks to the final benediction, what unfolded was less a banquet and more a battlefield briefing, a gathering of grief and grit where the mothers of the fallen sat alongside the exonerated, and every speaker seemed to understand that the room held people too tired for shallow remarks.
- Advertisement -
The Keepers of the Dream Awards exist for a singular purpose: to recognize those who have wielded their platforms and positions in defense of civil rights, to honor those who have refused to let the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. fade quietly while history repeats itself. This year, that mission had never felt more urgent.
This year’s honorees included:
- Singer and actor Billy Porter (President’s Award)
- President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Lee Saunders (Bayard Rustin Labor Award)
- Host Lawrence O’Donnell, The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, MS NOW (Chairman’s Award)
- CEO, FIFA World Cup 26 NYNJ Host Committee Alex Lasry (Community Impact & Sports Innovation)
- President of BET Louis Carr (Cultural Award)
- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of SL Green Realty Corp. Marc Holliday (Business Leadership)
- Special Recognition to George Faison, Tony Award-winning Director & Choreographer
The Weight in the Room
Before a single award was presented, before a single speech was delivered, the gravity of the evening announced itself in the faces seated in the audience – the mother of Eric Garner, the mother of Trayvon Martin, and the mother of Tyre Nichols. Three women. Three sons. Three names that reshaped the conscience of a nation and ignited movements in the streets. Their presence was not symbolic.
Also present were two members of the exonerated New York Five, Korey Wise and Yusef Salaam, men whose wrongful convictions became one of the most galvanizing civil rights stories of a generation, and whose continued presence in spaces like this one testifies to a resilience that the system tried and failed to extinguish.
Opening the Night
Camille Joseph-Goldman, Group Vice President for Charter Communications and NAN board member, opened the evening with the tone of someone who understood the room she was standing in, grounded, purposeful, and clear that this was not a night for going through the motions.
Governor Kathy Hochul brought remarks that acknowledged the stakes of the current political moment, lending the weight of the state’s highest office to a room that has long had to fight to be taken seriously by the offices it addresses.
Martin Luther King III: Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give Out, Don’t Give In
Martin Luther King III, who carried his father’s name and, in moments like this, his father’s fire. Speaking directly to the doubt and exhaustion that shadows activists in an era of relentless setbacks, King III posed a question that was really an invitation:
“We the people… When are we going to show up? Because it’s time to show up and show out. Hope is not dead,” he said, “and neither is faith dead.”
And then, the charge:“I would encourage you to get engaged and stay engaged. Don’t give up, out or in. Because one day, we will realize the dream.”
Billy Porter: “Democrats, Meet the Moment and Step Aside”
The evening’s emotional culmination came from Billy Porter. If there was a moment the evening shifted from solemn to electric, it was when he took the stage.
The award-winning actor and cultural force delivered what could only be described as an emotional, unfiltered call to action, part acceptance speech, part political manifesto, entirely from the heart. His voice broke at points. His conviction never did.
“Democrats,” he declared to a crowd that leaned in, “meet the moment and step aside!”
The line landed like a thunderclap, and the room answered with chants. But Porter wasn’t interested in applause for its own sake. He came with a blueprint. Among his proposed measures to move the nation forward: enacting term limits for the Supreme Court and abolishing the Electoral College, structural reforms that, stripped of the noise surrounding them, represent the kind of sound, substantive policy thinking that is timely in this moment.
Porter’s remarks were a reminder that artists, when they refuse to be decorative, can be among the most clarifying voices in any movement.
Lee Saunders: Standing in Power, Standing Together
Lee Saunders, the longtime labor leader whose career has been built at the intersection of workers’ rights and civil rights, delivered a charge that felt like a directive handed down from history itself.
“Each of us has a part to play,” he told the crowd. “To stand in your power together — not tomorrow, not someday, not next time, but NOW.”
And then, with the quiet confidence of a man who has watched movements bend the arc of history before, he closed with four words that cut through everything: “We will win.”
Not we can win. Not we hope to win. We will win. The certainty in it was almost startling, and entirely necessary.
The Dream, Still Kept
When the evening ended and the Sheraton’s ballroom began to empty, what lingered was not the grandeur of an awards ceremony but the gravity of a movement taking stock of itself — mourning, yes, but not paralyzed. Angry, yes, but directed. The mothers were still there. The exonerated were still there. And the dream, battered and contested as it is, was still there too.
The Keepers of the Dream Awards are named for a function that is not passive. It is daily, and the work of every person in that room who will wake up the next morning and choose engagement over despair, action over anguish, and presence over retreat.
