Activist Raoul Cunningham honored Sheldon S. Shafer, The Courier-Journal, January 13, 2006 Civil-rights activist Raoul Cunningham, president of the Louisville chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has won the city's annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Award. Mayor Jerry Abramson will present the award at Sunday's free public Louisville Orchestra concert, titled "I Too Have a Dream," at the Kentucky Center. The award, which the city first presented in 1987, recognizes citizens who embody King's ideals and promote justice, peace, freedom, nonviolence, racial equality and civic activism. Cunningham's advocacy for civil rights dates to the 1950s when, as a teenager, he demonstrated for African Americans to have full access to local public accommodations, officials said. "His commitment to equality is unwavering and has made Louisville a better place," Abramson said. "Raoul is one of the most on-target civil-rights promoters we have in Kentucky," said the Rev. Louis Coleman , director of the Justice Resource Center and a previous winner of the Freedom Award. "He has been on, and is still on, the battlefield," Coleman said of Cunningham. "You don't have to worry about his selling out, or being accommodating. If he challenges an issue, he will see it through." Cunningham, 62, said he is honored to receive the award but added that, "the successes we have had would not have been possible without many people." Cunningham is a graduate of Male High School and Howard University. He spent 12 years as a legislative assistant for then-U.S. Sen. Walter "Dee" Huddleston, D-Kentucky, and later eight years as a deputy state personnel commissioner in the administrations of Democratic Govs. Martha Layne Collins and Wallace Wilkinson. More recently Cunningham has been the state and national coordinator of NAACP voter-registration projects. One of his current focuses as NAACP president is "Operation Equal Justice," a program aimed at ensuring fair treatment of African Americans in the local court system. He is halfway through a two-year term as NAACP chapter president, an unpaid position. This year's Freedom Award will be a glass sculpture designed by local artist Ken von Roenn. Beverly Watts, longtime director of the Kentucky Human Rights Commission, won the award last year. Abramson spokesman Matt Kamer said a committee of Abramson's deputy mayors and several department heads selected Cunningham for the honor, with the mayor having the final say.