More than 1,200 San Diego residents and community leaders came together Friday morning at the 41st annual Human Dignity Award breakfast to honor Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s legacy while signaling the work that lies ahead.<\/p>\n
Hosted at the Town & County Resort by Jackie Robinson Family YMCA, the annual event paid homage to King. It was attended by Supervisor Montgomery Steppe, San Diego City Council members, religious leaders and past recipients of the award.<\/p>\n
Each year, two recipients are presented with the Human Dignity Award for their dedication to continuing King\u2019s legacy by promoting his values through their commitments to the community.<\/p>\n
Honorees this year are Leonard Thompson III, an education advocate and founder of M.A.N.D.A.T.E Records Inc., and Walter Wells, a pastor for more than five decades.<\/p>\n
Wells founded Mt. Erie Christian Academy, as well as several early childhood centers and daycare programs across San Diego County.<\/p>\n
Since assuming pastoral leadership in 1973, he has worked as an educational advocate and religious leader in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we honor the legacy of Dr. King, let us continue to work for God,\u201d Wells said. \u201cAs we look to those who are less fortunate than us \u2026 let us continue to stand for justice and righteousness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thompson founded one of San Diego\u2019s longest-standing independent record labels, known for gospel and jazz music. In 2014, he launched a nonprofit that trained inner-city youth in music, television, radio and event production.<\/p>\n
An ordained Elder in the Church of God in Christ, Thompson also founded the award-winning gospel radio station GODRadio1.com.<\/p>\n
For the second year in a row, local actor Rhys Green performed a re-enactment of the \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech King delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington in 1963.<\/p>\n
The keynote address was given by John E. Warren, publisher of the Black-owned newspaper Voice & Viewpoint and one of last year\u2019s recipients of the Human Dignity Award.<\/p>\n
![\"SAN](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SUT-L-YMCA-MLK-Breakfast-009.jpg\")
Dr. John E. Warren delivers the keynote address during the 41st annual Jackie Robinson Family YMCA Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Human Dignity Award Breakfast on Friday at the Towne and Country Resort in Mission Valley. (Howard Lipin \/ For The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to look back for a moment, because we are living in a time of crisis and a lot of us are frustrated and feeling hopeless,\u201d Warren said. \u201cLet me tell you, don\u2019t go there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, Warren said now is the time to look to King\u2019s achievements to inspire change in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are upset by what is happening in Minnesota, but we are not upset enough,\u201d Warren said. \u201cHow can we sit and be silent while the fabric of our government is being destroyed by one person in our government?\u201d<\/p>\n
He called for those in the audience to embody King\u2019s attitude and said, \u201cin spite of it all, we need to come together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 1,200 San Diego residents and community leaders came together Friday morning at the 41st annual Human…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,23,100,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-137287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-county","13":"tag-san-diego-headlines","14":"tag-san-diego-news","15":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}