Rashad Robinson, Ravi Kapur to Be Honored At 35th Annual Everett Parker Lecture

Rashad Robinson

Rashad Robinson, executive director of the Color Of Change, and Ravi Kapur, founder and CEO of Diya TV, will be honored at the 35th Annual Everett C. Parker Ethics in Telecommunications Lecture and Awards Breakfast, the United Church of Christ’s media justice ministry, the Office of Communication, Inc., has announced.

This year’s event will be held at 8 a.m. October 24 at First Congregational United Church of Christ, 945 G Street NW, in Washington, DC. OC Inc. previously announced that Rinku Sen, outgoing president and executive director of Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation, will deliver this year’s Parker lecture.

Robinson will receive the Everett C. Parker Award in recognition of his efforts to build Color Of Change into the nation’s largest online racial justice organization, with more than one million members. The Parker Award is given annually in recognition of an individual whose work embodies the principles and values of the public interest in telecommunications and the media as demonstrated by the late Rev. Dr. Parker, OC Inc.’s founder.

Under Robinson’s leadership, Color Of Change has championed media justice, developing strategies for changing written and unwritten rules that negatively impact the lives of Black people, people of color and all people. A frequent commentator in broadcast and print outlets, Robinson previously served as senior director of media programs at GLAAD and worked on racial justice and voting rights issues at the Right to Vote Campaign and FairVote.

Ravi Kapur

Kapur will receive the Donald H. McGannon Award, given in recognition of special contributions in advancing the role of women and persons of color in the media. Kapur’s Diya TV is the first 24-hour U.S. broadcast network targeted to serve a South Asian audience, reaching more than 70 million people in a dozen markets.

Kapur became the first Indian-American to own a full-power TV station in this country. His first broadcasting venture, KAXT-TV in San Francisco, developed programming to serve the Bay Area’s African-American, Hispanic, South Asian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean and Filipino communities, and Kapur led the station to its first Emmy Award in 2013.

The Parker Lecture was created in 1982 to recognize the late Rev. Dr. Parker’s pioneering work as an advocate for the public's rights in broadcasting. The event is the only lecture in the country to examine telecommunications in the digital age from an ethical perspective. A list of previous Parker Lecture honorees is available on our web site.