Legacy BanQuet
The annual Realizing the Dream Legacy Banquet features a keynote speaker and recognizes three community members who embody the servant leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Judy Woodruff
Broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff is perhaps best known for her time with PBS, during which she served as the chief Washington correspondent for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. She went on to work at CNN, where she served as anchor and senior correspondent for 12 years before returning to PBS in 2007. A Duke University graduate, she is the recipient of an Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Radcliffe Medal, the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award and the Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.
Legacy Award Winners
2025
Mountaintop Award
Vera Jenkins Booker
Nurse Vera J. Booker, the eldest of twelve children, was born in Talladega, Alabama. From an early age,she recognized her calling to serve others. She graduated in May 1954 as salutatorian of her high school class and went on to attend Alabama State College in Montgomery before continuing her studies at the Grady Hospital School of Nursing in Atlanta, where she graduated with honors in 1959. She worked in various nursing roles for almost four decades until an accident in 1992 cut her nursing career short. She taughtVocational Practical Nursing at Selma’s R.B. Hudson High School and worked at St. Jude Hospital in Montgomery, as well as the old Selma Baptist Hospital. Additionally, she served as a third-shift supervisor atGood Samaritan Hospital in Selma for seven and a half years. Her longest tenure was with the Dallas CountyHealth Department, where she worked as a Public Health Nurse, Coordinator of Medicaid Screening, andNurse Supervisor for 26 years before retiring in December 1995. While on duty at Good Samaritan Hospital in February 1965, Vera tended to civil rights activist Jimmy Lee Jackson after he was shot in Marion, Alabama, during the Civil Rights Movement. In June 2006, she testified before the Grand Jury in PerryCounty, which indicted the man responsible for Jackson’s murder. She played an active role in the Civil Rights Movement. Along with Mrs. Etta S. Perkins and Mrs. Alice Lewis, she organized nurses to join demonstrations at the Dallas County Courthouse to advocate for voting rights.
Call to Conscience Award
Dr. William Chace
William M. Chace is professor of English and president emeritus of Emory University and honorary professor emeritus of English at Stanford University. He holds a B.A. from Haverford College and Master’s and Doctoral degrees in English from the University of California at Berkeley. He began his teaching career in 1963–1964 at Stillman College and went on to serve as a professor of English at Stanford University, associate dean of humanities and sciences at Stanford, vice-provost for academic planning and development at Stanford, and president of Wesleyan University. His presidency of Emory University extended from 1994 until 2003. He was one of the first in the Wilson Fellows program, which funded educators to take teaching positions in the South. Stillman was participating in the program, and Chace was sent there to teach for a year. On his way to Alabama via Washington, D.C., he witnessed Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. At Stillman, he was moved by the students’ interest and growing awareness of the civil rights movement and came to admire the daily courage they exhibited in their commitment to education in the face of immense social challenges and constant legal jeopardy. While the college administration warned him against becoming involved with what the students might be planning to do, when a young woman who was his student invited him to join her as she intended to board a bus and to sit in the front, he went with her. He also marched around the then-new courthouse on April 23, 1964 and was the only person arrested. He was the only Stillman College faculty who joined the students and the marchers. Professor Chace lives in Palo Alto, California, with his wife JoAn Johnstone Chace.
Horizon Award
Samad Gillani
Legacy Banquet Award Recipients & Speakers
2024
Clarence Page, speaker
Adebola Aderibigbe, Horizon Award
G. Douglas Jones, Call to Conscience Award
Richard Arrington Jr., Mountaintop Award
2023
Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honore, speaker
Christopher Gill, Horizon Award
Lt. Gen. Willie Williams, Call to Conscience Award
Lt. Col. Geogre Hardy, Mountaintop Award
2022
Star Jones, speaker
Carina Villarreal, Horizon Award
Nahree Doh, Call to Conscience Award
The Honorable U.W. Clemon, Mountaintop Award
2020
Laura Ling, speaker
Emma Mansberg, Horizon Award
Chris England, Call to Conscience Award
Mary Allen Jolley, Mountaintop Award
2019
Byron Pitts, speaker
Quinvarlio S. Kelly, Jr., Horizon Award
Steven D. Anderson, Call to Conscience Award
Charles Steele, Jr., Mountaintop Award
2018
Danny Glover, speaker
Marissa Navarro, Horizon Award
Ellen Griffith, Call to Conscience Award
Frank Dukes, Mountaintop Award
2017
John Quiñones, speaker
Fan Yang, Horizon Award
Isabel Rubio, Call to Conscience Award
Wendell Paris, Mountaintop Award
2016
Douglas Jones, speaker
Elliot Spillers, Horizon Award
Theresa Burroughs, Call to Conscience Award
William Baxley, Mountaintop Award
2015
Juan Williams, speaker
Tyler Merriweather, Horizon Award
Ken W. Swindle, Call to Conscience Award
Arthur L. Bacon, Mountaintop Award
2014
John Cochran, speaker
Melanie Gotz, Horizon Award
Cleophus Thomas, Jr., Call to Conscience Award
E. Roger Sayers, Mountaintop Award
2013
Cynthia Tucker, speaker
Lubna Alansari, Horizon Award
Michael Culver, Call to Conscience Award
Paula Sue Burnum-Hayes, Mountaintop Award
2012
Terri Sewell, speaker
Gwendolyn Ferreti, Horizon Award
Bryan Fair, Call to Conscience Award
Nimrod Quintus Reynolds, Mountaintop Award
2011
Hank Klibanoff, speaker
Sean Hudson, Horizon Award
Harrison Taylor, Call to Conscience Award
William H. Lanford, Mountaintop Award
2010
Trudier Harris, speaker
Jerria Martin, Horizon Award
Dorothy McDade, Call to Conscience Award
Ella Odessa Warrick, Mountaintop Award
2009
Artur Davis, speaker
Kendra Key, Horizon Award
Walt Maddox, Call to Conscience Award
Thomas W. Linton, Mountaintop Award