Bono, lead singer for the musical U2, humanitarian and activist, received one of The King Center’s highest honors during its annual Salute To Greatness Awards Dinner on January 17.
“We are fortunate this year to honor Bono for exemplifying many of the qualities that my husband, Martin, indicated were imperative to moving our society into the Beloved Community of which he so often spoke,” commented Mrs. Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King and founder of the King Center.
Bono, who has campaigned tirelessly for third world debt relief, and for a global response to the AIDS emergency in Africa, told those assembled for the honors how, as a boy growing up in Ireland when violence in the North was at its height, Dr. King’s message was important to him: “We despaired for the lack of vision of the kind Dr. King gave to people in the U.S. South. He wasn’t just talking about the American dream. It was a much bigger idea actually, an idea that could fit an African dream, an Irish dream. And it certainly wasn’t a daydream. It was a call to action.”
U2’s 1984 hit “Pride in the Name of Love” was written as a tribute to Dr. King. ♦
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