There are 17 article(s) tagged Freedom Awards:

• September 2025

  • Civil Rights Museum announces Freedom Award honorees

    They include an educator, a former mayor of New Orleans and the CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

    By Lydia Williams September 04, 2025

• October 2024

  • Freedom Awards honor slayers of ‘dragons of prejudice’ in star-studded ceremony

    The 33rd annual Freedom Awards went to Oscar-winning filmmaker Spike Lee, Howard University professor and attorney Sherrilyn Ifill and civil rights activist Xernona Clayton.

    By Jody Callahan October 18, 2024

• June 2024

  • Civil Rights Museum to honor three with Freedom Awards

    The honorees will be in Memphis on Oct. 17 for the 33rd annual awards presented by the National Civil Rights Museum.

    By Bill Dries June 18, 2024

• October 2023

  • Stacey Abrams tells Memphis it has ‘power to change’ during Freedom Award speech

    “I’m here to tell you, Memphis, that you have the power to imagine, the power to dream and the power to change,” Abrams said while accepting her award. 

    By Rob Moore October 20, 2023

  • This Week in Memphis: MLGW budget vote, Freedom Awards

    A proposed rate increase is on the table for MLGW, the Civil Rights Museum gives out annual awards and Rhodes College will finally inaugurate its president.

    By The Daily Memphian Staff October 15, 2023

• October 2022

  • Smith: Economy ‘maybe stagflation’

    At last night’s Freedom Awards, FedEx Corp. founder Fred Smith talked about the economy and highlighted longtime staff members; two Pulitzer Prize-winning authors spoke about the time it takes to write about history. 

    By Bill Dries October 21, 2022

  • Pulitzer Prize-winning author talks ‘return migration’ at NCRM’s Freedom Awards

    All three recipients of the National Civil Rights Museum’s annual Freedom Awards talked at the Thursday, Oct. 20, ceremony about the present divisions in America and the way forward.

    By Bill Dries October 21, 2022

• August 2022

  • FedEx founder, Pulitzer Prize winners tapped for Freedom Awards

    The Freedom Awards will be held Oct. 20 at the Orpheum.

    By Bill Dries August 24, 2022

• January 2022

  • Opinion: Tutu’s time in Memphis pointed to need for reconciliation

    The Anglican archbishop who died Sunday, Dec. 26, came to Memphis in 1992 to receive the National Civil Rights Museum’s Freedom Award.

    By Bill Dries January 01, 2022

• October 2021

  • Former First Lady calls for persistence during Freedom Awards

    Former First Lady Michelle Obama was joined by Poor People’s Campaign founders Rev. William Barber and Liz Theoharis in an awards ceremony that was for the most part conducted live in an Orpheum theater without an audience.

    By Bill Dries October 14, 2021

• September 2021

  • Michelle Obama, Poor People’s Campaign among Freedom Award honorees

    The event will also include special recognition of the teenager who recorded the last moments of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

    By Bill Dries September 01, 2021

• December 2020

  • Freedom Award goes virtual at National Civil Rights Museum

    The National Civil Rights Museum’s annual Freedom Awards Friday, Dec. 11, will be basically a “greatest hits” online moment in this year of the pandemic.

    By Bill Dries December 14, 2020

  • Freedom Awards take stock of a rich past in virtual retrospective

    The 29th awards ceremony was virtual this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The online video of past ceremonies covered the annual event all the way back to its 1991 origins.

    By Bill Dries December 11, 2020

• October 2019

  • Freedom Award winners mix optimism with reality of barriers to change

    Nigerian activist Hafsat Abiola, entertainer John Legend and feminist icon Gloria Steinem talked of past struggles and present challenges and the ties between them as they were Wednesday in Memphis. 

    By Bill Dries October 31, 2019

• July 2019

  • Legend, Steinem and Abiola to receive NCRM Freedom Awards in October

    The honors were announced Thursday by National Civil Rights Museum President Terri Lee Freeman. The awards ceremony and gala along with the children’s forum will be Oct. 30.

    By Bill Dries July 25, 2019

• October 2018

  • Freedom Awards match turbulence of 1968 with today

    Former Vice President Joe Biden told several thousand people at the National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Awards Wednesday, Oct. 17, that the gains made by the movement honored in the museum are “under siege.” “Once again, we need your energy,” Biden said as he accepted the award at the Orpheum theater.

    By Bill Dries October 18, 2018

  • Jackson: Midterms about ‘mood to fight back’

    Rev. Jesse Jackson knows the National Civil Rights Museum well. The two-time Democratic presidential contender, close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and leader of the merged civil rights groups Rainbow-PUSH has been there often since the museum opened in 1991.

    By Bill Dries October 17, 2018