The YMCA of San Diego County Human Dignity Award annually honors an individual or group who has demonstrated extraordinary achievement and most exemplifies the work and character of the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On Friday, January 15, at the Town & Country Resort in San Diego, William “Tayari” Howard, a 43 year San Diego radio veteran with twenty-five thousand on air hours, writing and producing more than six thousand radio, television and public service announcements and hosting more than seven thousand events since 1981, will join our honorees of the past that have encompassed outstanding qualities of volunteerism, philanthropy and activism in our community since the first Human Dignity Award Breakfast in 1986.
Tayari was host for Smooth Jazz 98.1 on KIFM for sixteen years. During that span, Tayari turned his success into significance by personally raising more than $1.8 million dollars for thirty different San Diego non-profit agencies and has orchestrated or coordinated more than $600,000 in donated media (radio, television and newsprint) to various community based organizations as well. President Barack Obama awarded him a “Lifetime Achievement Award” on June 10, 2011.
Since 1980, Tayari has been the Voice of the Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Parade – one of the largest celebrations of its kind in the United States in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This parade is coordinated by the Zeta Sigma Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., the oldest African American fraternity in America, founded in 1906 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Dr. King was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha.
