1985 Humphrey Award Recipients

Arnold Aronson

A co-founder of the Leadership Conference, Arnold Aronson came to the civil rights movement as a leader of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (NJCRAC), where he developed policies and programs for Jewish agency involvement with issues of civil rights, civil liberties, immigration reform, church state separation, Soviet-Jewish immigration, and support for Israel.

Marian Wright Edelman

Edelman achieved the distinction of being the first African-American woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, directing the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational office, and later serving as counsel for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Poor People’s March. She then founded the Washington Research Project, which would engender the Children’s Defense Fund.

J.C. Turner

General President of the International Union of Operating Engineers, officer of the Maryland/D.C. AFL-CIO, Former President of the Metropolitan Washington D.C. Labor Council. He was an advocate that state and local labor groups be the voice of working families in the daily life and community.

Willie Velasquez

Founder of the Southwest Voter Registration Project (1974), community organizer, civil rights leader. He is credited with fostering Latino participation in the American political system and taught political inclusion to disenfranchised communities.