Sen. Edward M. Kennedy Posthumously Given MLK Center Salute to Greatness Award

On January 15, 2011, the MLK Center posthumously awarded the Salute to Greatness Award to Sen. Kennedy.

One of the MLK Center's highest tributes, the Salute to Greatness Award is given to "individuals and organizations that exemplify excellence in leadership and have demonstrated a commitment to the principles and philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."

These principles and that philosophy also represent the driving force behind the creation of the EMK Institute.

Remarks of Victoria Reggie Kennedy at Award Ceremony

To Martin Luther King III, Elder Bernice King, Dr. Christine King Farris. Ambassador Andrew Young and Arndrea King — thank you.

And to Ben and Jerry, congratulations on this well-deserved recognition, and on behalf of Teddy, let me thank you for many happy spoonfuls.

I am privileged to be here on the birthday of a man I so admire to accept this award given to the man I love.

No tribute would have moved Teddy more. For my husband’s heroes were his brothers in life — and his brother in spirit, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Edward Kennedy's maiden speech as a young United States Senator was a demand to make real the ideal of America and secure the civil rights of every American.

And nearly half a century later, the last speech of his life was a call to complete the journey. Here are Edward Kennedy’s words in December of 2008: “We [have] elected a 44th President who, by virtue of his race, could have been owned by the first 16 Presidents of the United States. We judged him, as Martin Luther King said, not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character and his capacity for leadership. For America, this is not just a culmination, but a new beginning.”

By that December, Dr. King had been gone for four decades; but for Teddy, he was always a touchstone and a beacon to light the way — as he is for countless millions today, at home and around the globe.

So we now observe the 25th anniversary that is both a celebration and a summons.

And I know that in the long struggle for this national holiday, Edward Kennedy was so proud to lead alongside Coretta Scott King. For him, she was a friend and counselor. She was Dr. King’s wife, but she was a force for right in her own right. This is her day too — but it belongs to all Americans.

My husband saw it that way — as a time not merely to mark the memory of Martin Luther King, but even more, to advance the march of Martin Luther King toward a pledge as old as the Revolution and the Civil War — and as new as the discrimination and injustice that still blight our own time — that all of us are created equal.

In his first term in the Senate, Edward Kennedy wrote the bigotry of the past out of our immigration laws. He fought for civil rights and voting rights, for fair housing and fair employment for education and equal access to health care.

In all his time in public life, he was proud to speak for those who had no voice — and to fight on, even when it was out of fashion, to make sure that no one was left without help or hope.

He was a sponsor of the sanctions that brought down the mighty walls of apartheid in South Africa.

On affirmative action, on the rights of the majority who are women and the minority who are of different ethnicity, ability or sexual orientation, he sought to fulfill Dr. King’s vision that “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

And that, as both men knew, was true not alone for our own country, but everywhere on earth.

Martin Luther King, Jr. had faith that we can break “the chain reaction of evil — [of] hate begetting hate.” Edward M. Kennedy saw an America “where we can contend freely and vigorously, but where we will treasure and guard those standards of civility which alone make this nation safe for both democracy and diversity.”

On this day, let us rededicate ourselves to what is best in our country.

Surely we know it when we live it — as these two men lived not just for themselves, but for others.

One of them told us: “I have a dream.”

The other affirmed: “The dream shall never die.”

In the name of that dream, with a full and grateful heart, with a sense of the humility he would feel tonight, on behalf of my husband I accept this Salute to Greatness Award which above all else expresses the legacy of the greatest visionary our nation has ever known — Martin Luther King, Jr.