During Sunday’s Martin Luther King Jr. International Salute breakfast, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-8) and Jason Wingard, president of the Potomac Community Foundation, were honored.
Raskin received the King Legacy Award for Government and Public Service during the 34th annual breakfast. Wingard received the King Legacy Award for Academic and Executive Leadership.
“Dr. King challenged us to build beloved community through service, courage, and unity,” said Madeline Y. Lawson, Founder and CEO of the Institute for the Advancement of Multicultural & Minority Medicine (IAMMM). “This year’s honorees lead across government, humanitarian service, advocacy, education, and global diplomacy, and they model the impact Dr. King called upon all of us to pursue.”
When accepting the honor, Raskin said, “In the last century, no one has done more to shape America than Dr. Martin Luther King. Nobody. And in the century before that, it was Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. You’ve got to put them all in the same place in terms of the catalytic, transformational role that they’ve had in changing America. Dr. King understood that the struggle for freedom, for civil rights, for voting rights, for democracy in America was linked to the struggle for democracy and human rights all over the world — and it could not be seen in isolation.”
When Wingard accepted his award saying, “I believe Dr. King would expect us to remain engaged, by voting, organizing, mentoring, teaching — even when disengagement feels easier or safe. Dr. King’s legacy reminds us that leadership should not be measured by how carefully we protect ourselves, our status, our reputations, our stuff. It should be measured by how willingly we place ourselves in service of something larger, even with consequences. Dr. King did not retreat when the work became exhausting, when the work became risky, or when the work became scary — and neither can we. So I accept this award with humility, not as recognition, but as a call to courage in the time of fear and the time of struggle.”
Other recipients include:
• Dr. Dorothy I. Height Leadership Award: Ms. Ricki Fairley (Annapolis, MD), CEO, The Black Breast Cancer Alliance
• King Legacy Award for Global Diplomacy: Her Excellency Dr. Petra Schneebauer, Ambassador of Austria to the United States
• King Legacy Award for Advocacy and Community Service: Mrs. Nell Chennault Calloway (Louisiana), President and CEO, Chennault Aviation and Military Museum
• King Legacy Award for Global Unity: Bishop Brett Fuller (Washington, D.C.), Presiding Bishop, Every Nation Family of Churches (under Grace Covenant Church)
• King Legacy Award for Global Leadership and Humanitarian Impact: Rotarian Ijeoma Pearl Okoro (Nigeria), Trustee, Rotary International
• King Legacy Award for Global Philanthropy and Service: Philip Qiu (Washington, DC), Chairman, Chinese American Museum in Washington, D.C.
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