The Second Most Popular Man On Earth

At last night's 2015 Salute To Greatness Awards Dinner hosted by The King Center, Ambassador Andrew Young introduced President Bill Clinton as perhaps "the most popular man in the world."

The 42nd president and recipient of the Individual Martin Luther King, Jr. Center's Salute to Greatness Award, was quick to correct Young.

"The most popular man in the world: The Pope!"

Clinton went on to humor the crowd saying that until recently it was a close race until the Roman Pontiff was reported to have declared pets go to heaven.

That was the clincher.

With kidding aside, Clinton delivered an inspiring and timely message as part of his acceptance speech. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution provided an excellent summary and photo gallery online (I sat beside their reporter and stood with their photographer in the photo pit).

On recent violence in troubled neighborhoods both stateside and abroad, Clinton said today's youth should be raised with King-inspired teachings of nonviolence rather than anger and leveraging guilt.

"[Youth] need to believe somebody’s got their back and wants them to live up to their God-given capacity,” Clinton said. “We must stop raising them in shame and raise them in pride.”

With regards to Clinton's message and mission fulfilled by the Clinton Foundation, no other 2015 King Center honoree "gets it" more than Harris Rosen, president and COO of Rosen Hotels & Resorts. Though I've stayed in the Rosen Centre Hotel during many trips to Orlando for client IAAPA, last night was the first I learned of Rosen's generosity through the Tangelo Park Program which he created out of appreciation for his God-granted success.

According to the awards event program, TPP "provides free preschool for every two-to-four-year old in the neighborhood" and "full community college, four-year college or vocational school scholarship for every graduating high school senior." Graduation rates went from less than 50 percent to nearly 100 percent, and inspired by The King Center honors, Rosen announced to the gala audience the creation of an urban follow-up program launching soon to serve a downtown Orlando neighborhood.

Rosen said he wishes for and dreams of other successful business women and men to use the TPP model across the U.S. That's a dream I'll support!

It was fun to witness President Clinton joining Secretary Hillary Clinton, Bono of U2, Ambassador Young, Ted Turner, John Portman (architect of the hotel in which the annual dinner takes place), Dr. Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey, Stevie Wonder, Tony Bennett, Hank Aaron, Magic Johnson and Muhammad Ali and many others as Salute to Greatness Honorees.

Some good five-ringed ties in this crowd. More from a brief Olympic conversation with Young to follow in another post.

Photo by Nicholas Wolaver

 

 

 

Awards Dinner Fit For A King

Back in 2001, about an hour after U2 and Bono finished performing at Philips Arena, I was lucky enough to be returning to my car when the band members exited the venue for an impromptu autograph session with a few hundred waiting fans.

Seizing the opportunity for a photo and brief conversation with the band, when my turn came, I asked Bono, "Since you've sung multiple songs about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., have you ever visited The King Center in Atlanta?" to which he replied, "No. No, we haven't. Where is it?"

Imagine my delight when just three years later The King Center announced that Coretta Scott King would present Bono with the Salute To Greatness Award for the singer's humanitarian work. I was lucky to again see Bono in person at that event held five years ago, Jan. 17, 2004.

I am still dying of curiosity whether Bono and his band mates DID visit The King Center after that conversation at Philips Arena -- will be sure to ask Bono the next time I see him.

It was on that evening that I was first in line to shake hands with Mrs. King on what turned out to be one of her last public appearances (somewhere out there, a helpful reporter from Chicago's Red Eye newspaper has a photo of Mrs. King and I posing as my camera batteries went out at that moment of introduction -- here's hoping the reporter and I may meet again so that photo will make it to my archive).

With thanks to The King Center communications team, tonight I will again attend their Salute To Greatness event (as a "registered media blogger") at which Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (I like the sound of her new title) and Mr. S. Truett Cathy (founder of Chick-fil-A) will receive well-deserved honors. Will post photos and observations from the festivities here tomorrow, as well as footage from the big King Holiday celebrations on Monday.

It's going to be a day on, not a day off!