The National Civil Rights Museum Remembers the Struggle for Freedom

As an undergrad, Danny Glover helped organize a five-month strike that permanently changed university policy. Marva Collins believed in her students so fiercely she put her teachers' pension into a founding a new school. Activist Dolores Huerta fought to preserve her culture and won. For these and sixteen other iconic devotees, civil and human rights were more than stories laying flat on a page.

Come celebrate their lives and legendary stories at the 20th Anniversary Freedom Awards, sponsored by the National Civil Rights Museum in Downtown Memphis. The ceremony will begin at 5 p.m. at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, followed by a concert gala filled with dinner and dancing at the nearby Cook Convention Center.

For two decades, the National Civil Rights Museum has focused the world's attention on the sacrifices made for human rights, paying tribute to strides made in education, sports, arts and entertainment, activism and legal justice. Designed to distinguish "the tireless contribution in civil and human rights" of seasoned pioneers, young legacies and noted icons of the movement at large, including 2011 honorees like Cicily Tyson, Bill Frist, Kirk Whalum, Susan L. Taylor, Bill Russell, Alonzo Mourning, John Seigenthaler, Rev. Jesse Jackson and others.

Housed in the Lorraine Motel and nearby rooming house where accused assassin James Earl Ray fired the fatal shot at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, the National Civil Rights Museum is only a few short blocks from the glitter and guile of famed Beale Street Entertainment District, South Main shopping and the Mississippi River.

Don't miss this opportunity of a lifetime as Memphis pays tribute to the true greats of American Civil Rights.