MEMPHIS, TN – (October 29, 2014) – Today the National Civil Rights Museum announced that Tom Brokaw is being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Freedom Award. He joins Frank Robinson, also a 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. Charlayne Hunter-Gault will receive the International Freedom Award; Bob Moses will receive the National Freedom Award. The Lifetime Achievement Freedom Award for Journalism is sponsored by FedEx.
Themed “Breaking Barriers, Advancing Freedom,” The Freedom Award, National Civil Rights Museum’s annual fundraiser, will be held December 2, 2014 at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, followed by the Gala Dinner.
“Tom Brokaw has spent his career documenting important milestones in American and global history,” said Beverly Robertson, president of the National Civil Rights Museum. “He was the first reporter to interview Mikhail Gorbachev and first to report on human rights abuses in Tibet accompanied by an exclusive interview with the Dalai Lama; the only American anchor to report from Berlin the night the wall came down and he has extensively reported on the triumphs and tragedies of the Civil Rights Movement. We are honored to have him among our distinguished Freedom Award recipients.”
Brokaw is a television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. During his career, he covered Watergate, the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11. In addition to his historic reign in the anchor seat, Tom Brokaw produced many specials for NBC, including 2001's "The Greatest Generation Speaks," based on Brokaw's best-selling 1998 book, The Greatest Generation.
Brokaw has kept busy during his retirement, hosting History Channel documentaries, including 1968 with Tom Brokaw, which portrayed the year as one of the most turbulent and pivotal periods in American history. Early in his career (1965), he moved to Atlanta to cover the Civil Rights Movement and was able to cover stories on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. while serving as anchor and editor at KMTV.
Brokaw has received several awards including three Peabody Awards, seven Emmys, the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Freedom Award activities on Tuesday, December 2 include the following:
10:00 a.m. – Public Forum, Temple of Deliverance (369 G.E.Patterson)
6:30 p.m. – Award Ceremony, Cannon Center for the Performing Arts
8:00 p.m. – Gala Dinner, Memphis Cook Convention Center
About the Freedom Award
The Freedom Award is an annual event presented by the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis TN. Since 1991, the Freedom Award has served as a symbol of the ongoing fight for human rights both in America and worldwide. Recipients are celebrated for their tireless contributions in civil and human rights, education, the arts, sports & community service, justice and for their dedication to creating opportunity for the disenfranchised.
Tickets and tables are available for the Freedom Award ceremony and gala event. Tables are $2,000 for non-profit and $3,000, $4,500, $6,500, $10,000, $15,000, $25,000 and $35,000. To reserve tickets and tables click here or call (901) 526-1813.
The Public Forum, which is free and open to the public, focuses on area youth and features remarks from Freedom Award honorees. The Keepers of the Dream award is given to local youth who have demonstrated acts of compassion, leadership, courage and service.