MLK Beloved Neighborhood Awards pink carpet
Singer and actor Trina Braxton, the host of the 2025 MLK Beloved Neighborhood Awards, joins FOX 5 Atlanta reporter Eric Mock on the pink carpet on the Omni Atlanta Resort. She says the message for the award ceremony is easy: Serve your group.
ATLANTA – The annual Beloved Neighborhood Awards by The King Middle kicked off a weekend of remembrance and repair in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
It’s an evening to honor individuals working to make the world a extra simply place.
However the injustice of an unhoused man’s dying, attributable to an Atlanta Metropolis Public Works truck throughout a sweep of the encampment the place he was sleeping, weighed closely on most of the civil rights leaders gathered on the ceremony.
MLK Beloved Neighborhood Awards
The music, glitz and glamor of the annual awards ceremony shined shiny Saturday night.
As celebrities and group leaders got here collectively to honor these working to hold out Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s imaginative and prescient of a “beloved group.”
Actress Jenifer Lewis, who’s starred in lots of motion pictures and T.V. exhibits together with Black-ish, obtained an award throughout the ceremony.
“I’ve had quite a lot of great events in these 68 years, however that is essentially the most great. The glory and the hallelujah of all of it when individuals come collectively, stand robust and unite,” Lewis stated.
Civil rights leaders involved about homeless man’s dying
Civil rights leaders replicate on man crushed by public works truck
Civil rights leaders who got here to the King Middle’s Beloved Neighborhood Awards hung out reflecting on the dying of a person who was killed throughout the clearing of a homeless encampment by an Atlanta Metropolis Public Works truck. It occurred close to Ebenezer Baptist Church.
However the dying of a person who was homeless by the hands of an Atlanta Metropolis Public Works truck whereas they have been making an attempt to brush the encampment the place he was staying on Outdated Wheat Avenue Thursday, occurred only a few hundred toes away from The King Middle.
Dr. Bernice King, CEO of the King Middle and daughter of the late Dr. King lamented the tragedy.
“I simply want that the one who did this might’ve considered ‘hey let’s verify the tents, let’s make certain human beings will not be current’ earlier than they cleared out the camp,” King stated.
FOX 5 was at one other MLK Day occasion in Stone Mountain and caught up with the President of Hosea Helps Elisabeth Omilami.
Hosea Helps President Elisabeth Omilami
She decried the tragedy and says the dying feels too just like the deaths of the 2 sanitation staff in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.
“It jogs my memory of the gents who have been crushed by the rubbish truck in Memphis at Martin Luther King’s final speech the place he was assassinated in Memphis,” Omilami stated.
State President of the NAACP Gerald Griggs was at Saturday’s awards ceremony and says it exhibits how badly the Metropolis must make adjustments.
“We don’t want to maneuver individuals after we’re having worldwide company. I feel Dr. King would need us to embrace these unhoused brothers and sisters and do extra to supply the required funds and housing for them,” Griggs stated.
How Metropolis of Atlanta leaders are responding
In an announcement, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens stated town will “assessment every of our processes and procedures and take each precaution to make sure this by no means occurs once more.”
Dr. King says the King Middle stands prepared to assist them try this.
“We’re wanting ahead at The King Middle to probably working with the Metropolis to coach individuals on the best way to perform what they’re educated to do in a humane approach,” King stated.
Some activists have accused the Metropolis of clearing the homeless encampment due to its proximity to The Martin Luther King Jr. Nationwide Historic Park and the upcoming vacation.
However the Metropolis denies that.
In an announcement, Cathry Vassell, CEO for Companions for HOME, which works with the Metropolis to get individuals housed, stated they’d been working with this encampment for months to try to get them off the streets previous to this sweep.
“The primary engagement with this encampment started the week of April 5, 2024. People started transitioning to shelter on June 7, 2024. Via these ongoing efforts, 21 people have been related to shelter and housing,” her assertion reads.
The Supply: Info for this story was offered by the Metropolis of Atlanta and gathered by FOX 5 crews on the 2025 Beloved Neighborhood Awards Ceremony and Stone Mountain MLK ceremony.
