THE INAUGURAL AWARDS GALA FILM FESTIVAL
honoring four visionary leaders in the fight for civil rights
SEPTEMBER 23, 2019
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS
WASHINGTON, DC
PROGRAM ON WASHINGTON MARCH
WELCOME ABOUT THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON FILM FESTIVAL
Welcome to the inaugural MARCH ON WASHINGTON FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS GALA.
We are delighted you have joined us for our first-ever Gala and, as we plan on hosting this Festival kick-off event each year moving forward, tonight you are a witness to history.
When I first met Festival founder Robert Raben as an enthusiastic audience participant in 2016, I was struck by where he steered the topic of our initial conversation: how we dedicate a Festival to all women and highlight their impact on the Movement. Tonight we do just that.
This year, as America marks the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote, we will celebrate four incredible women who have devoted their energy, intellect, time, and talent to advancing civil rights and social justice. They came from different circumstances and traveled different paths, but each is honored here tonight because of their tireless work on a journey toward the same heading.
We are also quite humbled to be joined this evening by esteemed luminaries of the Movement – living legends of civil rights history who will pay moving tribute to these daughters of the South. Thank you for being here and continuing to give of yourselves after already giving us all so much.
This has been an exciting and transformative year for the Festival as we increased programming nationwide, expanded our educational platform, and increased our investment partnerships. Moving forward, this Gala will allow us to shine a brighter spotlight on our efforts to educate, motivate, and inspire generations through the telling of our shared story.
Thank you to our generous supporters and to each and every one of you here tonight for making this Gala and our eighth year of the Festival an outstanding success. We are so grateful for your investment and the work it allows us to do year-round.
To our amazing MOWFF team: none of this would be possible without you and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. To Robert and our devoted Board of Directors: thank you for entrusting me with this treasure and standing beside me as we expand our scope and impact in bringing this amazing history to the forefront of American consciousness.
SAMANTHA ABRAMS Executive Director March on Washington Film Festival
The MARCH ON WASHINGTON FILM FESTIVAL was first established in 2013 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
The Festival creates a national platform that brings together history, scholarship, and art to tell a more accurate story about the pivotal events and heroes, known and unknown, of the civil rights movement. By linking those events to today’s social justice movements and raising up the testimonies of the foot soldiers who were there, the Festival inspires a renewed passion for activism, and ultimately seeks to change the way the civil rights era is taught and understood.
The Festival leverages the power of film, scholarship featuring academics, filmmakers, and civil rights activists; master classes with professional journalists, filmmakers, authors, and artists; and live performances by musicians, vocalists, choirs, dramatists, and dancers to tell a more accurate story about the pivotal events and heroes, known and unknown, of the civil rights movement.
ABOUT THE
MARCH ON WASHINGTON FILM FESTIVAL
The MARCH ON AWARDS and LIFETIME LEGACY AWARD were created to recognize leaders whose devotion to the advancement of civil rights and social justice is unparalleled.
These prestigious awards will be presented annually and the recipients will be honored at the opening night Gala during The March on Washington Film Festival.
HONORING WOMEN OF THE MOVEMENT 2019:
PRAISING THE BRIDGES WE CROSSED OVER
HONOREES AWARDS
MARCH ON AWARDS
Dr. Joyce Ladner Sociologist Joyce Ladner was born in Battles, Mississippi, on October 12, 1943. She attended Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Mississippi, where she earned her B.A. in sociology in 1964 and went on to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, to earn a Ph.D. in 1968. At school, she also became involved in the civil rights movement. After earning her Ph.D., Ladner went on to teach at colleges in Illinois; Washington, D.C.; Connecticut; and Tanzania. Ladner published her first book in 1971, Tomorrow’s Tomorrow: The Black Woman, a study of poor black adolescent girls from St. Louis. In 1973, Ladner joined the faculty of Hunter College at the City University of New York.
Ladner is active in a number of civic and professional organizations. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, The American Sociological Association, the Washington Urban League, the Washington Women’s Forum and the Coalition of 100 Black Women. In 1997, she was named Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian for her work in education.
Peggy Wallace Kennedy Peggy Wallace Kennedy is a Montgomerybased civil rights activist who is recognized as one of America’s most important voices for peace and reconciliation. Born into one of the most powerful political families in the history of the American South, with her parents, George and Lurleen Wallace both serving as Governors of Alabama over the course of eighteen years, Peggy Wallace Kennedy now stands apart from her past. Her life’s story demonstrates that while none of us can be held responsible for our birth, each of us will be held responsible for who we can become. With the creation of a new and different legacy for her and her two sons, Leigh and Burns, Mrs. Kennedy challenges us to believe in ourselves so that we too can walk to higher ground.
As a national speaker, Mrs. Kennedy has participated in programs at the National Archives, congressional forums with Congressman John Lewis and on the 50th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March, joined Reverend Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King on the steps of the Alabama capitol as a living testament to the power of change. Mrs. Kennedy’s own personal journey and her call for justice through reconciliation may one day be viewed as the most important and lasting public service of the Wallace/Kennedys of Alabama.
Honorable Terri Sewell is in her fifth term representing Alabama’s 7th Congressional District. She is one of the first women elected to Congress from Alabama in her own right and is the first black woman to ever serve in the Alabama Congressional delegation.
Congresswoman Sewell sits on the exclusive House Ways and Means Committee and brings to the committee her more than 15 years of experience as a securities and public finance attorney. Currently, in the 116th Congress, she serves as Vice-Chair of the House Ways & Means Committee where she sits on three subcommittees: the Subcommittee on Health; the Subcommittee on Trade; and the Subcommittee on Worker and Family Support. Congresswoman Sewell also serves on the distinguished House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence charged with the oversight of our national security. She is currently the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Defense Intelligence and Warfighter Support, charged with the oversight of collection and timely dissemination of Department of Defense intelligence with respect to support of all military operations
A proud product of Alabama’s rural Black Belt, Congresswoman Sewell was the first black valedictorian of Selma High School. She is an honors graduate of Princeton University and Oxford University in England and received her law degree from Harvard Law School.
LIFETIME LEGACY AWARD
Nikki Giovanni is one of America’s foremost poets. Over the course of a long career, Giovanni has published numerous collections of poetry — from her first self-published volume Black Feeling Black Talk (1968) to the New York Times best-seller Bicycles: Love Poems (2009) — to several works of nonfiction and children’s literature, and multiple recordings. Her most recent publications include Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid (2013) and, as editor, The 100 Best African American Poems (2010).
Giovanni’s first published volumes of poetry grew out of her response to the assassinations of such figures as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and Robert Kennedy, and the pressing need she saw to raise awareness of the plight and the rights of Black people. Giovanni has taught at Queens College, Rutgers, and Ohio State, and is currently a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech. Following the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, she delivered a chant-poem at a memorial for the shooting victims.
She has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal, the Caldecott Honor Book Award, the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, and the NAACP Image Award. She has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. Additionally, she has been named as one of Oprah Winfrey’s 25 “Living Legends”.
& PRESENTERS SPEAKERS PERFORMERS
Samantha Abrams, a longtime Washington-based corporate and nonprofit business leader, is the Executive Director for the March on Washington Film Festival (MOWFF). In this role, Ms. Abrams is responsible for leadership of the organization including overseeing MOWFF’s strategic direction, programming, fundraising, and partnerships. The March on Washington Film Festival finds, encourages, and brings to life stories of both icons and foot soldiers from the Civil Rights Movement. MOWFF educates, inspires and motivates people to have a better understanding of our history.
Before joining MOWFF, she was responsible for strategy and development at the Black Women’s Health Imperative and served as a senior member of the team. Prior to joining the Imperative, Ms. Abrams served as a consultant to government interest companies, nonprofit associations, and business owners. During her 19 years in corporate and nonprofit roles, Ms. Abrams has become a seasoned expert in creating successful for-profit and nonprofit partnerships, leading corporate social responsibility initiatives and fundraising.
Previously, Ms. Abrams served GEICO Insurance Company for twelve years where she served in many leadership roles in Public Affairs and Marketing. She was responsible for designing affinity partnership programs, activating the federal workforce through dynamic program alignment and multi-channel advertising campaigns. Additionally, she managed multi-million-dollar marketing budgets and supported the execution of the company’s social responsibility goals and diversity initiatives. She ensured corporate commitment included financial and talent support, lead employee participation and provided Board support nationwide.
Ms. Abrams has had long-term relationships with many legacy civil rights and nonprofits organizations and currently serves as a Founding Board member of the Social Justice School in Washington, DC.
Isisara Bey is producer, keynote speaker and facilitator for performances, conferences, festivals, workshops, travel retreats and board meetings. She’s a former executive with Sony Music and Sony Pictures Entertainment, television producer and on-air radio personality, and has been with MOWFF for six years. Isisara has served on the boards of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, National Book Foundation, Rhythm & Blues Foundation, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Center for Traditional Dance & Music, and Delaware State University Corporate Advisors. Her career began as morning drive personality and producer for WEAA.FM, and news writer/producer for WJZ-TV in Baltimore, MD. She has won several awards for her work in corporate affairs and broadcasting. Isisara has a Bachelor’s in Theater and a Master’s in Media from Antioch University, received executive education from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and is a certified Empowerment Institute facilitator.
Jonathan Capehart MASTER OF CEREMONIES | Jonathan Capehart is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and member of The Washington Post editorial board, writing about politics and social issues, and hosting the Cape Up podcast. Additionally, he is an MSNBC contributor who regularly serves as a substitute anchor, and has served as a guest host on Midday on WNYC on New York Public Radio. Capehart is a regular moderator of panels at the Aspen Ideas Festival and for the Aspen Institute, the Center for American Progress, and at The Atlantic Dialogues conference and the Brussels Forum of the German Marshall Fund. He has also moderated sessions at The Atlantic’s Washington Ideas Forum and for the Connecticut Forum. Capehart was deputy editorial page editor of the New York Daily News from 2002 to 2004 and served on that paper’s editorial board from 1993 to 2000. In 1999, his 16-month editorial campaign to save the famed Apollo Theatre in Harlem earned him and the board the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing. Capehart left the Daily News in July 2000 to become the national affairs columnist at Bloomberg News and took a leave from this position in February 2001 to serve as a policy adviser to Michael Bloomberg in his first successful campaign for New York City mayor.
Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole is an American anthropologist, educator, museum director, and college president. Cole was the first female African-American president of Spelman College, a historically black college, serving from 1987 to 1997. She was president of Bennett College from 2002 to 2007. During 2009–2017 she was Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art. Cole has also served in major corporations and foundations. Cole served for many years as board member at the prestigious Rockefeller Foundation. She has been a director of Merck & Co. since 1994. From 2004 to 2006, Cole was the Chair of the Board of Trustees of United Way of America and is on the Board of Directors of the United Way of Greater Greensboro.
In 2018 she was awarded the Legend in Leadership Award for Higher Education from the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. American Alliance of Museums Honors Dr. Johnnetta Cole with 2017 Award for Distinguished Service to Museums. In 2013, Cole received the highest citation of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, the Alston-Jones International Civil and Human Rights Award.
Cole has received more than 40 honorary degrees, including those from Williams College and Bates College in 1989, Oberlin College in 1995, Mount Holyoke College in 1998, Mills College in 1999, and Howard University and North Carolina A&T State University in 2009. She received honorary membership in Phi Beta Kappa from Yale in 1996, and has served as a Phi Beta Kappa Senator. She received a Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.
Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton is an American politician serving as a non-voting Delegate to the United States House of Representatives, representing the District of Columbia. She was born in Washington, D.C. She attended Antioch College (B.A. 1960), Yale University (M.A. in American Studies 1963) and Yale Law School (LL.B 1964). While in college and graduate school, she was active in the civil rights movement and an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and while in law school, she travelled to Mississippi for the Mississippi Freedom Summer and worked with civil rights stalwarts such as Medgar Evers. Her first encounter with a recently released but physically beaten Fannie Lou Hamer forced her to bear witness to the intensity of violence and Jim Crow repression in the South. Her time with the SNCC inspired her lifelong commitment to social activism and her budding sense of feminism. Appointed by President Jimmy Carter as the female Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1997, Norton released the EEOC’s first set of regulations outlining what constituted sexual harassment and declaring that it was indeed a form of sexual discrimination that violated federal civil rights laws. In 1990, Norton, along with 15 other African American women and one man, formed African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom. Norton received a Foremother Award for her lifetime of accomplishments from the National Research Center for Women & Families in 2011.
Honorable Doug Jones is an American attorney, former prosecutor and politician serving as the junior United States Senator from Alabama since 2018. Jones is the first Democrat to win statewide office in Alabama since 2008.
He previously was a United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 1997 to 2001. Jones was born in Fairfield, Alabama, and is a graduate of the University of Alabama and Cumberland School of Law at Samford University.
After graduating law school, he worked as a congressional staffer and then as a federal prosecutor before moving to private practice. In 1997, Jones was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama by President Bill Clinton. Jones’ most prominent cases were the successful prosecution of two Ku Klux Klan members for the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four African-American girls and the indictment of domestic terrorist Eric Rudolph. Jones recounts the history of the bombings and his subsequent involvement in Blanton and Cherry’s prosecution in his 2019 book, Bending Toward Justice: The Birmingham Church Bombing that Changed the Course of Civil Rights. In 2007 Jones was honored with the 15th Anniversary Civil Rights Distinguished Service Award from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Also in 2007, Jones testified before the United States House Committee on the Judiciary about the importance of re-examining crimes of the Civil Rights Era. He created the Birmingham firm Jones & Hawley, PC with longtime friend Greg Hawley in 2013. He was named one of B-Metro Magazine’s Fusion Award winners in 2015. In 2017 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Alabama chapter of the Young Democrats of America.
Honorable John Lewis Born the son of sharecroppers in 1940 outside of Troy, Alabama, John Lewis grew up on his family’s farm and attended segregated public schools in Pike County, Alabama. As a young boy, inspired by the activism surrounding the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, he became a part of the Civil Rights Movement. Ever since then, he has remained at the vanguard of progressive social movements and the human rights struggle in the United States.
During the height of the Movement, he helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which was largely responsible for organizing student activism, including sit-ins and other activities. At the age of 23, he was an architect of and a keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.
In 1964, John Lewis coordinated SNCC efforts to organize voter registration drives and community action programs during the Mississippi Freedom Summer. The following year, Lewis helped spearhead one of the most seminal moments of the Civil Rights Movement; the peaceful march of over 600 protesters across the Edmund Pettis Bridge that became known as “Bloody Sunday.” News broadcasts and photographs revealed the senseless cruelty of the segregated South and helped hasten the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Despite more than 40 arrests, physical attacks and serious injuries, John Lewis remained a devoted advocate of the philosophy of nonviolence. After serving on the Atlanta City Council beginning in 1981, he was elected to Congress in November 1986 and has served as U.S. Representative of Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District since then.
John Lewis holds a B.A. in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University, and is a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary, both in Nashville, Tennessee. He has been awarded over 50 honorary degrees and is the recipient of numerous awards from eminent national and international institutions, including the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, bestowed by President Barack Obama.
Often called “one of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement ever produced,” John Lewis has dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties, and building what he calls “The Beloved Community” in America. His dedication to the highest ethical standards and moral principles has won him the admiration of many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the United States Congress.
Robert Raben, and the seventy or so people who have joined him in the unique public policy firm he created in 2002, works to drive public policy in a humane and sensible direction; to bring diversity and equity to the boardrooms and think tanks and corporations of America; to create a fair judiciary and to influence legislation that will broaden civil rights, reform our criminal justice system, and improve education for all our children.
Nearly 30 years of professional experience as an attorney, senior Hill staffer, and Assistant Attorney General have given Robert a nuanced understanding of both the legal subtleties and the political realities of the issues he handles. In addition, he brings an aggressively bipartisan approach to the firm, built during a highly respected legislative career that began on Representative Barney Frank’s staff and concluded with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde’s endorsement of his Justice Department appointment.
Robert served as counsel to Congressman Barney Frank, Democratic counsel for two Subcommittees of the House Judiciary Committee; first on the Constitution, then on the Courts and Intellectual Property.
In 1999, Robert’s reputation and effectiveness caught the attention of the White House, earning him an appointment as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and, subsequently, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legislative Affairs. After a unanimous confirmation vote by a Republican-controlled Senate, Robert was charged with overseeing Attorney General Janet Reno’s legislative initiatives and handling extensive Congressional oversight of the department.
Since 2002 he has run The Raben Group. He serves on the Boards of The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and former President Barack Obama’s My Brothers’ Keeper Alliance. Past Board Service includes the American Constitution Society, Alliance for Justice, and the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project
He is a serial NGO entrepreneur, having formed the Hispanics for a Fair Judiciary, the Friends of the Museum of the American Latino, Green 2.0, Committee for a Fair Judiciary, the March on Washington Film Festival, and the Pasos Graduation ceremony for Latino law students.
PERFORMERS ABOUT THE
Terri Lyne Carrington is a jazz drummer, composer, singer, record producer and entrepreneur. She has played with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Clark Terry, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Joe Sample, Al Jarreau, Yellowjackets, and many others. She toured with each of Hancock’s musical configurations (from electric to acoustic) between 1997 and 2007. In 2007, she was appointed professor at her alma mater, Berklee College of Music, where she received an honorary doctorate in 2003. She has won three Grammy Awards.
Lizz Wright was born in the small town of Hahira, Georgia, one of three children and the daughter of a minister and the musical director of their church. She started singing gospel music and playing piano in church as a child, and also became interested in jazz and blues. She attended Houston County High School, where she was heavily involved in choral singing, receiving the National Choral Award. She went on to Georgia State University in Atlanta to study singing. Since then she has studied at The New School in New York, and in Vancouver, BC. Her first album, Salt, was released in the spring of 2003 and reached No. 2 on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz chart in 2004. In 2008, Wright released The Orchard to positive reviews. She released her fourth album, Fellowship, in 2010, an album composed primarily of gospel standards.
FILM FESTIVAL
INAUGURAL AWARDS GALA
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 23, 2019 | 6:00PM NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS
EVENING PROGRAM
COCKTAIL RECEPTION
WELCOME
Jonathan Capehart MASTER OF CEREMONIES
Samantha Abrams
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
MARCH ON WASHINGTON FILM FESTIVAL
Robert Raben FOUNDER MARCH ON WASHINGTON FILM FESTIVAL
DINNER AWARDS
MARCH ON AWARDS
Dr. Joyce Ladner
PRESENTED BY HONORABLE ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON
Peggy Wallace Kennedy
PRESENTED BY HONORABLE JOHN LEWIS
Honorable Terri Sewell
PRESENTED BY HONORABLE DOUG JONES
LIFETIME LEGACY AWARD
Nikki Giovanni
PRESENTED BY DR. JOHNNETTA B. COLE
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Terri Lynn Carrington & vocalist Lizz Wright
CLOSING REMARKS
Isisara Bey
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
MARCH ON WASHINGTON FILM FESTIVAL
PASSED HORS D’OEUVRES
Herb–Encrusted Lamb Lollipops
medium rare | mint pesto dipping sauce
Autumn Pizza
caramelized onions | sautéed wild mushrooms | fontina cheese
Mini Asian Crab Cakes
thinly-sliced cucumber | pickled ginger | wasabi mayonnaise
Butternut Squash & Two-Potato Pancakes
paired with sour cream
Wild Mushroom Risotto Bites
golden breadcrumbs | marinara sauce
FIRST COURSE
Cape Cod Chopped Salad
arugula | diced pears | dried cranberries | goat cheese | candied walnuts
apple cider Dijon vinaigrette
Lavash & Grissini Bread Basket
SECOND COURSE
Filet of Halibut over Julienne Vegetables
carrots | leeks | zucchini
lemon white wine sauce
Wild & Basmati Rice Laced with Fresh Herbs
Roasted Fall Market Medley
DESSERT COURSE
Red Velvet Cake
whipped cream cheese frosting
Seasonal Wine Pairings
sommelier’s selections
THANK YOU SUPPORTERS TO OUR GENEROUS WITH GRATITUDE
GALA CHAIR
Uber VICE CHAIR
AARP
AT&T
HOST
David & Katherine Bradley
GEICO
InterDigital
BENEFACTOR
Ms. Amanda Bennett & Mr. Donald E. Graham
College Board
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR DEDICATED
MARCH ON COMMITTEE
Victoria Bassetti
Katherine Bradley
Joyce Brayboy
Katie Buckland
A’Lelia Bundles
Samara Foxx
Kate Goodall
Comcast NBCUniversal & WARM APPRECIATION TO
Mastercard
SPONSOR
Colgate-Palmolive
Diageo
Craig Emanuel & Deborah Zipser
Dr. Sharon Malone & Eric Holder
Microsoft
Southern Company
TMobile
Walmart
Wells Fargo
DC Office of Cable Television, Film, Music and Entertainment
Diageo
Diamler
Dr. Sachiko Kuno & Halcyon
Motion Picture Association of America
Pepsi
Williams & Connolly LLP
ADVOCATE
Joyce Brayboy
National Beer Wholesalers Association
Nancy Zirkin
Eugene Kelly
Carolyn Lerner
Tanya Lombard
Marc Morial
Robert Raben
Rynthia Rost
Philippa Scarlett
Marie Sylla
Antonio Williams
Nancy Zirkin
Nicole M. Backus
Lori Brubaker Morales
Capitol Percussion + Backline
Diageo
greiBO Entertainment
Kimball Stroud & Associates
National Beer Wholesalers Association
National Museum of Women in the Arts
Provisions Catering
The Raben Group
Summit Event Production
Suzanne Codi Floral Design
Daniel Swartz
Worth Higgins & Associates, Inc.
