Prince Harry has delivered a powerful speech at the virtual Diana Awards, the annual award ceremony that highlights youth who continue the late royals charitable legacy, on what would have been Princess Diana’s 59th birthday.
“I am so incredibly proud to be part of these awards, as they honour the legacy of my mother and bring out the very best in people like you,” Harry said. “You all are doing such incredible work, and at a time of great uncertainty, you have found the power and inspiration inside of you to make a positive mark on the world. And I love that The Diana Award is able to help you do it.
“I know that my mother has been an inspiration to many of you, and I can assure you she would have been fighting in your corner. Like many of you, she never took the easy route or the popular one or the comfortable one. But she stood for something, and she stood up for people who needed it,” the Duke of Sussex continued. “Right now, we are seeing situations around the world where division, isolation, and anger are dominating, as pain and trauma come to the surface. But I see the greatest hope in people like you, and I’m confident about the world’s future and its ability to heal, because it is in your hands.”
Harry went on to discuss the Black Lives Matter movement taking place all over the world, and how he and wife Meghan Markle feel that their respective generation hasn’t done enough to dismantle racism.
“My wife said recently that our generation and the ones before us haven’t done enough to right the wrongs of the past. I, too, am sorry—sorry that we haven’t got the world to a place you deserve it to be,” he said. “Institutional racism has no place in our societies, yet it is still endemic. Unconscious bias must be acknowledged without blame to create a better world for all of you.”
Harry added that he and Meghan remain “committed to being part of the solution and to being part of the change that you are all leading.”
“Now is the time, and we know that you can do it,” he finished.
