On June 8, 2012, the K.W. Lee Center for Leadership hosted the 7th annual dinner and silent auction in the Oxford Palace Hotel. Through this event, the board members of this organization hoped to raise funds for their center and for this year’s college and high school interns in the Korean American Youth Leaders in Training (KAYLT) program, who would be spending the summer with them.
With 23 members in this year’s Honorary Dinner Committee and Dinner Host Committee, the event was well-represented. In order to prepare and conduct this event, there were over 200 volunteers, individual contributors, business and communication organizations, and corporations.
Among these many guests, however, there was one special guest that was titled the highlight of this night’s memorable dinner: Reverend James Lawson.
As an advocate for nonviolent social change, Lawson worked to fight for civil rights and spoke against injustice for decades. In 1957, he was recruited by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to assist with the civil rights movement and had trained student volunteers in Gandhian tactics of nonviolent direct action.
A main part of this night was to celebrate and honor Lawson with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the K.W. Lee foundation.
“I was inspired by what Lawson did and is still doing,” Daniel Lee, a student volunteer, said.
While this dinner was to bring together important members of the Koreatown community, it was to also remember once again the importance of standing up in midst of racial and economic inequalities as a strong leader.
