Ted Kennedy among King award honorees

ATLANTA, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., will be honored at next month's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration and Realizing the Dream Awards, an official says.

Realizing the Dream founder Martin Luther King III said in a news release from his organization Monday that the U.S. senator will be one of four honorees at a Capitol Hill ceremony on Jan. 18, 2009.

King said other honorees at the fourth annual awards event will be the Rev. Claude Black, Nobel Peace Prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.

King said the awards ceremony honoring the four individuals' achievements, as well as those of King's father, will take place two days before U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration.

"My father would be so proud of these four individuals to whom we are all indebted. It is fitting that this celebration falls just two days before we inaugurate our first black president, an occurrence made possible, in part through the work of these honorees, and through the work of my father," King said.