2024 Freedom Award Ceremony: Spike Lee, Xernona Clayton and Sherrilyn Ifill honored
From Commercial Appeal:
A jubilant Spike Lee autographed sneakers on Main Street.
Hip-hop pioneer MC Lyte performed throwback rap on the stage of the Orpheum.
And activists Sherrilyn Ifill and Xernona Clayton exhorted the crowd to "rid society of the dragons of prejudice" and "make a new American democracy" Thursday night during a roughly two-hour Freedom Award ceremony that proved to be one of the livelier and more urgent in the 33-year history of the National Civil Rights Museum's top honor.
Constructed around a preserved portion of the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, the museum touts the Freedom Award as its "signature event" and "one of the nation's most prestigious" honors.