Vice President for the Chapel Hill – Carrboro NAACP James Williams received a citizenship award at UNC’s annual Martin Luther King Memorial Banquet earlier this month.

Williams says 50 years after King’s assassination, he can still feel the impact the civil rights hero has had on his life.

“It was indeed an honor to receive an award named after certainly one of my heroes and an individual that has had so much impact on my view and my actions and the way I order my steps in this world,” said Williams.

Although King is received with almost universal praise today, Williams says that at the time of his assassination he was a polarizing figure.

“[People] were concerned that he was taking on an issue that was going to cause difficulty in engaging on say, for instance, civil rights,” said Williams.

Williams noted that many of the battles King was taking on in the 1950s and ’60s have still not been won today.

“He talked about how this society, particularly those in positions of power or influence, were blind or refused to see the poor,” said Williams. “That could be written today.”

Williams is looking to further the conversation of wealth inequality and race by holding a program set for March 18, which is still in the planning phase.

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