Yahoo News Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz, Colin Kaepernick Among Those Honored at the Gordon Parks Foundation Gala
“Since Sunday afternoon, I’ve been feeling kind of blue,” said Spike Lee. “But this night has been uplifting.”
It was the end of the evening at Cipriani 42nd Street, dinner long since served, and Lee was onstage to present the last honoree at the 2024 Gordon Parks Foundation awards gala. While Lee was feeling down because of the New York Knicks’ Game 7 loss at home in the NBA playoffs, he shifted his attention at Tuesday’s gala to a different sport, football. Lee instructed the entire room to stand as former NFL player turned activist Colin Kaepernick made his way onstage.
More from WWD
Fashion, Football Worlds Unite in Paris for Special-needs Children
Jane Fonda and Jodie Foster Suit Up at the Hammer Museum's Gala in the Garden
Kaepernick was being honored at the gala alongside Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz, artist Mickalene Thomas, former chair of the NAACP Myrlie Evers-Williams, and actor Richard Roundtree, posthumously, who starred in Parks’ film “Shaft.”
“We’re privileged to be in this room together. We all have a privilege; we’re doing well for ourselves,” said Kaepernick, looking out at the crowd, which included Usher, Ben Stiller, Gayle King, Clive Davis, Chelsea Clinton, Patti Smith and leading contemporary artists like Carrie Mae Weems, Amy Sherald, Patti Smith, Derrick Adams and Jammie Holmes.
“Nights like this also make me think about all the people who aren’t here. All the doors, all the barriers that we still have to kick down so everybody else can come through,” added Kaepernick. “So when we leave here today, ask for one thing: That all of us walk in that power. Kick those doors down. Open those windows up. Break those walls down.”
Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz, who have cochaired the gala for over a decade and own the largest private collection of Parks’ works, were honored by the foundation as Patrons of the Arts. The Dean family’s personal art collection is being exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, with several Gordon Parks photographs on view.
Onstage, Keys told the crowd that she was reflecting on Parks’ legacy, and her own childhood growing up in Hell’s Kitchen. “One never knows where they can go. And one might be told that they can’t go where others go,” said Keys. “And it’s up to those like Gordon, those like us in this room, to remind each other and those that come after us that there is nowhere that we don’t belong.”
“Shout-out to all the giants in the room,” said Swizz, following his wife. “Which are all the creatives and all the people that support the creative arts in all formats.”
The evening’s live auction, which included one Hank Willis Thomas work in addition to several Gordon Parks photographs, raised $640,000. The gala raised a record amount of more than $2.3 million to support the foundation, which preserves Parks’ work and supports artists through an annual fellowship program.
Other gala guests included the foundation’s executive director Peter W. Kunhardt, Parks’ daughter Leslie Parks Bailey, actor Tim Reid, Sherri Bronfman, Hannah Bronfman, Hannah Traore, Young Paris and photographer Louis Mendes. The evening opened with a performance by the Anthony Morgan Inspirational Choir of Harlem and DJ D-Nice closed out the evening with a dance party.
Launch Gallery: Alicia Keys, Usher, and More at the Gordon Park Foundation Annual Awards Dinner and Auction
Best of WWD
