WASHINGTON — Ann Burroughs, president and CEO of the Japanese American National Museum, has received the Annice M. Wagner Pioneer Award from the Bar Association of the District of Columbia (BADC).
The award is one of the highest honors that the BADC gives to a leader in human rights and social justice. The award was presented during the BADC’s annual banquet on Dec. 6 in Washington, D.C.
“This award clearly acknowledges and honors Ann’s lifetime commitment to human rights and social justice,” said William T. Fujioka, chair of the JANM Board of Trustees. “At JANM, we are extremely fortunate to have Ann as our CEO and president, especially during these turbulent times.
“JANM has taken a strong position on the importance of these fundamental rights that must be protected for all communities. Ann’s leadership and personal commitment to these principles have strengthened JANM’s role and actions to be a beacon and voice for social justice.”
Burroughs was introduced by Deni Mineta, widow of former Secretary of Transporation Norman Mineta, who chaired JANM’s Board of Trustees, and Doug Nelson, vice chair of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, where Burroughs serves on the Board of Directors.
Burroughs’ Acceptance Speech
To receive the Hon. Annice M. Wagner Pioneer Award is something I could never have imagined. I am immensely honored.
It is a privilege to be with all of you tonight — honored guests, friends, and colleagues — and to stand alongside my fellow honorees, Judge Florence Pan, William Atkins, and to the associates whose work has expanded access to justice across the district.
Whatever I have been able to contribute has been shaped by the remarkable people I have had the privilege to walk beside, and by the institutions and movements that formed me long before I understood where my own path might lead.
My own journey — like so many in this room — has been rooted in the conviction that human rights are not abstract ideals but lived realities, rooted in the dignity of every person. I learned that truth early, through struggle, through community, and through resistance.
I learned it as a young activist in my native South Africa when I was jailed as a prisoner of conscience for opposing apartheid and injustice. And I learned it when Amnesty International helped to secure my release and to keep me safe. I owe Amnesty a debt that I can never fully repay.
To be able to serve this organization, now as chair of the International Board, is a privilege. It carries a responsibility grounded in gratitude for an organization that insists — every single day — that humanity must be at the center of our work. In the face of repression, conflict, and dehumanization, Amnesty reminds the world that humanity is not negotiable — and that it always wins.
Yesterday marked the anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s passing — a reminder that the struggle for freedom and dignity is long, and that each of us must choose whether to remain silent or to stand. Mandela taught us that courage is not the absence of fear, but the refusal to surrender to it. I think of that lesson often, especially now, when so many are being called to choose between complacency and conscience.
Tonight, I also carry with me the profound honor of my time as CEO of the Japanese American National Museum. Our founders envisioned a place where the history of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans would be preserved, justice remembered, and future injustice prevented.
In February of this year, we were the first museum in the nation to speak out in defense of civil rights, history, and democracy when federal policies began to echo the injustices that defined our founding. The ideological scaffolding was the same: racism masked as national security and xenophobia framed as law and order.
At JANM, history is preserved not to wound, but to warn; not to shame, but to teach; not simply to remember, but to insist that memory itself has now become an act of resistance.
Because we are living in a time when history is being rewritten or erased; when democracy is challenged; when efforts are being made to homogenize culture and silence diversity; when federal agencies charged with protecting civil rights face dismantling. Every voice silenced, every story erased, a victory for authoritarianism.
But history does not yield to censorship. And we cannot either.
Democracy is strengthened not by forgetting, but by remembering.
In this, I am reminded of the late Secretary Norman Mineta, who was the chair of JANM’s Board of Trustees until his passing in 2022, and who also received this same award in 2011. He was incarcerated as a child at Heart Mountain simply because he “looked like the enemy,” and went on to become one of our nation’s most revered public servants.
He was also one of my greatest teachers. Each of our conversations was a master classes in humanity and leadership. His example continues to guide my work — and I believe it guides the work of many in this room.
And so I end where I began — with gratitude. To the Bar Association of D.C., to my fellow honorees, and to all of you, for your unwavering commitment to civil rights. You have been at the vanguard — holding the line against the rollback of rights, refusing to be cowed or silenced, defending the rule of law when it has been sorely tested.
Whatever recognition I receive tonight belongs equally to those who stand firm, insist on justice, and remind us that rights endure only when we defend them together. You have inspired a nation. And I thank you for your courage.
I accept this award on your behalf, on behalf of all who continue this work — with humanity at the center, and with the conviction that, in the end, humanity wins.