The 44th annual Urban League Awards Luncheon was held in Palm Beach County, Wednesday. This year's event focused on equal opportunity.
On this day of celebration, the national president of the Urban League made sure to remind everyone how much work still needs to be done.
"We're built for difficult times so in many respects the challenging times have required us, me as leader, the Urban League as an organization to step up and elevate our game," Marc Morial said.
For 15 years, former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial served as the President of Urban League, a 105-year-old civil rights organization.
"We've got a lot to learn in this country, we've got a lot of work to do in this country and we've all got to be committed to doing it," he said.
Morial says recently he's seen a shift in how people handle racism.
"It's interesting that on the very same day Roseanne makes these despicable, hateful statements you've got another American cooperation Starbucks leading thousands of its employees and 8,000 thousand of its stores through racial sensitivity and implicit bias training," Morial said.
For him, starting the conversation is the first step in fixing a divided nation.
"If you hear somebody say something inappropriate, you need to challenge them not just say oh that's just how she is, that's just how he is," he said. "You need to challenge them and say I don't agree."
This year's Lifetime Achievement Award went to Palm Beach County Administrator Verdenia Baker.