Each year, Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services in cooperation with the
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
give the Ford Freedom Award posthumously to honorees who have dedicated their life to improving the
African American community and the world at large through their chosen fields.
A Ford Freedom Award honoree and scholar is selected annually. The scholar is chosen for furthering the honoree’s achievements for a new generation.
The 2011 Ford Freedom Award Program honoree is Judge Constance Baker Motley, who was a crusader for civil rights and the first African American appointed to the federal judiciary. As a dedicated jurist, she had a major impact on ending racial discrimination by participating in nearly every important civil rights case brought to trial between 1945 and 1965.
The 2011 Ford Freedom Award Scholar is Judge Damon J. Keith, who was born in Detroit and has served since 1977 as a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit Court. When Harvard University bestowed an honorary degree on Judge Keith in 2008, the citation read that he is an “Avatar of independence, champion of equal justice under law, a just and humane jurist who has shared and shaped the action and passion of his time.”
Essay Contest for Grades 4-8
In celebration of the 2011 Ford Freedom Award’s recognition of these noteworthy jurists, Michigan students in grades 4-8 are invited to submit essays on the following topic:
The law affects people in many ways. Laws cover both big issues — business practices, violent crimes — and smaller issues — how many days kids go to school, what to do at a crosswalk or red light. Laws are national, state and local. Pick a law that affects you or your family every day. Research what the law was designed to do, how and when it was passed and how life in the community is better as a result of the law.
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