Nigerian-born UPENN Prof. Adebanwi Presents 25th MLK Social Justice Award to US Celebrity Spike Lee

At an historic and well attended event at US ivy league- University of Pennsylvania, the Director of the school’s Center for Africana Studies, Nigerian-born Prof. Wale Adebanwi has presented the Center’s 25th edition of the Revd. Martin Luther King Jr’s Social Justice Award to the iconic filmmaker, Mr. Spike Lee.

The event which took place Tuesday evening-January 20 at the UPENN’s Annenberg Center inside the Zellerbach Theatre was jam-packed with over 900 guests who listened to Spike Lee who also delivered a lecture associated with the Award via a conversation with Heather Andrea Williams, Adebanwi’s colleague at UPENN. Williams has known Lee’s family over the years.

Prof. Adebanwi said the honour done Spike Lee is in recognition of his commitment to social justice over the years.

He said “Mr. Lee has exemplified the spirit of social justice throughout his remarkable body of work, never failing to be provocative, courageous, and unafraid to speak truth to power.“His art has been a powerful instrument in the historic freedom struggle, challenging audiences to confront injustice not as abstraction, but as lived reality.

“Tonight, we honor not only a filmmaker, but a moral witness, an artist whose work has helped shape public consciousness and whose voice continues to insist that America confront its past, reckon with its present, and imagine a more just future.”

While reviewing Lee’s impact, Adebanwi observed that for over four decades, “Spike Lee has used film as a form of social critique – forcing audiences to confront racism, inequality, police violence, historical amnesia, and the consequences of failing to speak up.

“Indeed, he is a giant in the landscape of American culture and a transformative figure in U.S. history. Given that cinema has existed for barely 130 years, Spike Lee has emerged as one of the most daring filmmakers in the medium’s history.

“Throughout his life and career, he has not offered easy answers nor sought approval. Instead, he insists on being unapologetically honest.

“Like Dr. King, Spike Lee understands that justice is not passive, and that art, when rooted in truth, can be a vehicle for change. We see this in his body of work…”

Being an annual event, “the MLK Jr. Social Justice Lecture & Award celebrates the life and legacy of Dr. King, featuring a speaker of African descent who is distinguished for social justice advocacy,” according to a statement on the UPENN website.

The event was co-sponsored by the Penn Office of the President, the Annenberg School for Communication, and theAnnenberg Public Policy Center

According to Adebanwi who is also the UPENN Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies “the Center for Africana Studies hosts the MLK Jr. Lecture and Award annually. Spike Lee was our honoree this year.He was such a great guest and the capacity audience at our 900 plus hall had such a great time with him as he engaged in a dialogue with my colleague, who had known him and his mom for many years.”

Lee got a standing ovation at the end of the conversation and he did say he would love to do an event with the Center showing his documentary on the bombing of the churches in the South of the US in the 1960s.