Ruby McKnight Williams Awards Dinner Rescheduled

The NAACP Pasadena Branch on Monday announced the date for the rescheduled 35th annual Ruby McKnight Williams Awards Dinner.

At the dinner, the Pasadena Branch of the group honors residents across the region for exceptional service to the community. 

According to an email on Monday, the Pasadena NAACP is standing in solidarity with striking workers at the Pasadena Hilton where the event was originally scheduled to be held on Nov. 20.

“The Pasadena Branch has become aware of a recent and ongoing labor strike by hotel workers at the Pasadena Hilton. Consequently, we find it neither fitting nor appropriate that we cross – either actually or symbolically – any picket line or lines by those workers for our signature event. We will honor their cause and reschedule because we honor their work, their lives, their challenges and their right to sustainable living wages,” according to the email from Juanita West Tillman, event co-chair, and Pasadena NAACP President Allen Edson.

The event is scheduled now to be held on March 21. 

Previously purchased tickets will apply to the new date. Refunds are available on request.

In the email, the group quoted Martin Luther King Jr. On April 3, 1968, one day before he was felled by an assassin’s bullet, King told workers during the Memphis Sanitation Strike,

“…Whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and worth,” the email said.