On November 13, 2021, Veletta Forsythe Lill and Chris Luna received the Kuchling Humanitarian Award from the Dallas Black Tie Dinner, the largest annual fundraising event in the City of Dallas, with an audience of 2.300 guests. The following is the written text of Veletta LIll’s acceptance speech.

Good evening! Let me say how great it is to see you all in person and dressed up and seeing you from your neck down. I want to start by saying a big thank you to the Black Tie Dinner committee, my dear friends and co-chairs Terry Loftis and Brad Pritchett, to the selection committee who believed in Chris and me, and to all the sponsors and donors who make Black Tie possible and congratulations to all the beneficiaries that make our city and our world a better place.

Learning that Chris and I had received the award was both exhilerating and humbling. The long list of prior recipents is a who’s who of servant leaders. People who are my friends, people I have only admired from afar. People who are with us, people who have left us. But all these people are heroes in their own right. Cece Cox, Steve Atkinson, Alan Levi, Harryette Erhardt, Don Maison, Patti Fink, Kay Wilkinson, Mike Anglin, Stephen Pounders, John Thomas. Then there are those with rock star status in this constellation and they only need first names - Jack and George, Bud and Chet.

Add on the luminaries who have taken this stage and it is intimidating - people like Maya Angelou and Ann Richards (and let me say if there is to be one politician who comes back from the great beyond and plans on appearing at Dealey Plaza - God please let it be Ann Richards)

Although Kuchling Award winners are all different and often have taken different paths, there are ties that bind us. We do not have super powers, we only have human powers. We believe that we can use whatever powers we do have, and we know we have to show up, we have to stand up and we can never give up.

We show up at meetings, we show up in court, we show up at clinics, we show up in board rooms. We know we have to show up — we know if we are not in the room they won’t know us, they might not hear us, and they will certainly not understand us. We have to listen up. We must know what our friends say and what the opponents say. We need to know the stories, and we need to know the facts.

We will need to tell those stories; we will need to use those facts when we stand up. And we will stand up in dining rooms, in board rooms, in city halls and in state legislatures.

And to fully change minds and change laws we can never give up. I moved to Dallas in 1985. Sodomy laws were on the books, there were few treatments for HIV/AIDS. There were no ordinances to protect LGBTQ individuals in their homes, at their jobs or often in their neighborhoods. There was no gay marriage. There were just a lot of NO’s. Eventually the sodomy laws were struck down and ordinances that protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination in their jobs and in their homes were passed. Many of those things have come to pass as a result of OUR work, no single person’s work. We have worked hard and the change that has been achieved many thought might never come to pass. But, as with much in life, it is necessary to rinse and repeat. We cannot take any of these fairly recently found freedoms, locally or nationally, for granted.

Two promises in my life that I have kept no matter what. 1) I promised my husband when he married me that life with me would never be dull. 2) I promised if I were given a microphone I would use that microphone to ensure more voices were heard, and we would use our collective voices on behalf of fairness and equity. I’d like to think that you honor me tonight for some of my time at the microphone. And I’d like to think you honor me tonight not just for the battles we have had to fight, but for the joy and friendship we have shared in the journey. Finally, I want to thank several colleagues from my council days who were often at the microphone with me and who deserve a shout out for standing up - John Loza who is no longer with us. Lois Finkelman - Thelma to my Louise. Dr. Elba Garcia still fighting the good fight in the halls of power, Ed Oakley and Laura Miller.

Thanks you all for being my friends. Thank you all for being my allies. Love to you all.