Mayor Cory Booker presented actor-singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte with the NAACP’s Spingam Medal during a ceremony in New York City Feb. 15.

The medal, which honors achievement by a black American in the previous year, was given to the 85-year-old Belafonte, who helped pay for the freedom rides of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and also bailed Martin Luther King out of jail.

In his comments, which lasted about 15 minutes, Booker praises the civil rights pioneers, like Belafonte, who paved the way for the next generation of African-Americans.

Video is courtesy of Democracy Now!