The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina is hosting the 2017 Liberty Awards Dinner at the Sheraton Hotel in Raleigh this Saturday to honor “champions of liberty,” or those who have worked to advance civil rights and civil liberties in North Carolina.

Former public defender for Orange and Chatham counties, James E Williams, Jr., will be presented with the highest honor: the Frank Porter Graham Award for lifetime achievement in civil liberties.

Williams retired at the end of May and worked as a public defender for 27 years.

The UNC Center for Civil Rights will also be receiving an award for its work to advance civil rights and civil liberties in North Carolina.

Last month the UNC Board of Governors voted to bar the Center, and all centers and institutes, from engaging in litigation, meaning the center can no longer initiate civil rights lawsuits.

The keynote speaker for the event is Yusef Salaam, of the “Central Park Five” case, a case involving a group of five young men that were wrongfully tried and convicted for the 1989 rape and murder of a jogger in Central Park.

Salaam served over five years in prison for a crime he did not commit and now shares his story to raise questions about race and class, the failings of the criminal justice system, legal protections for vulnerable youth and basic human rights.

The event will additionally honor LGBTQ North Carolinians Joaquín Carcaño, Payton McGarry, Angela Gilmore, Hunter Schafer, Madeline Goss and Quinton Harper, who are challenging state anti-LGBTQ laws H.B. 2 and its replacement, H.B. 142, Nan Lund, Robert Voelker and Liesa Montag-Siegel, for challenging Rowan County commissioners’ unconstitutional practice of opening public meetings with prayer, former capital defender Elaine Gordon for her work to end the death penalty, and activist Davion M. Washington, Jr.

The Liberty Awards Dinner will be a closed event.

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