A Kentucky native has been honored by the National Action Network for her life’s work on behalf of civil and workplace rights.
The award for 92-year-old Augusta Thomas was presented in Washington on Monday (Jan. 19) during the NAN’s Martin Luther King Day celebration.
American Federation of Government Employees President Jeffrey David Cox accepted the award on Thomas’ behalf. Thomas was a mother of six living in Louisville in 1960 when she went to Greensboro, North Carolina.
Cox says she joined the protest of four African-American college students who were refused service at a lunch counter.
“Miss Augusta sat there day after day. People spat on her, they hit her, they kicked her, they knocked her off the stool…she kept getting back up. She was arrested twice in the process.” –Jeffrey David Cox
During her career, Thomas worked at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Louisville and later became an affirmative action coordinator for the American Federation of Government Employees.
She was also a classmate of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. while living in Atlanta in 1935.
