Among those to congratulate the couple were UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and his wife Nane.

On November 13th, 2001, the Africa America Institute honored AllAfrica co-founders Reed Kramer and Tamela Hultman for their roles in promoting improved media coverage of Africa. They were also co-founders of the non-profit Africa News Service and have reported, produced and consulted for a variety of national and international print and broadcast media.

The two received a Special Recognition Award for Lifetime Achievement in Media. Other awardees, honored for their work on behalf of Africa, were cancer and HIV/Aids research scientist Dr. Mathilde Krim, former U.S. trade representative Rosa Whitaker, reporter Kenneth Walker and the nations of Senegal and Ghana, recognized for their democratic transitions.

The presentation at the annual AAI dinner in New York City was made by the chairman of the Institute's board, Kofi Appenteng, a Ghanaian-born attorney who is a partner in the Manhattan firm of Thacher-Proffitt and Wood. At the dinner, former board chair Roger Wilkins congratulated his successor on being the first African-born chair of the 150-year-old organization.

Here are Mr. Appenteng's remarks about the AllAfrica co-founders:

For more than three decades, Reed Kramer and Dr. Tamela Hultman have been working to improve the range of African news Americans consume and that the U.S. media reports about. Their commitment for this cause stems from their belief that Africa should be seen as part of the world, not as a strange, different, isolated continent.

This husband and wife team's relationship with Africa and journalism began at the height of the Vietnam War. At that time, they traveled to South Africa to survey US investments in the apartheid regime. Their groundbreaking research was later used to guide the actions of anti-apartheid and economic sanctions campaign organizers in the United States and abroad.

There no doubt that Mr. Kramer's and Dr. Hultman's commitment to bringing the news of Africa into American living rooms, has improved understanding and increased educational and business exchanges between the U.S. and Africa.

Their ingenuity and know-how has also successfully filled what was once a colossal void in US news coverage about Africa, and its complex, social, political and economic terrain. It gives me great pleasure to present the Africa America Institute's Special Recognition Media Award for Lifetime Achievement to Reed Kramer and Dr. Tamela Hultman.

Here is the text of the awardees' acceptance statement:

	Accepting the award.

[Kramer] Tami and I are humbled and grateful for this high honor. AAI was a pioneer, and it is impossible to travel anywhere in Africa without seeing the results of its vision in the people who are making a difference.

Mr. Chairman, Madame President, we celebrate your commitment to build on that legacy and we want to support your important work in every way we can. We are especially honored to be in the magnificent company of the other award recipients -- and of those of years past.

It's been a wonderful evening, but we recognize the obligation bestowed on those who come last on the program. So we'll use our journalism training to condense all the thanks we want to express into a few moments.

[Hultman] When Reed and I got the news that we were to be given a lifetime achievement award at this point in our careers, we didn't quite know what to make of it. Was it a signal that it was time to pass the torch and retire from the stage? Or perhaps it reflected the fear that -- as an Internet company getting started when the bubble burst -- AllAfrica was an endangered species, and if we were ever to receive an award, it had to be soon!

The way we've chosen to regard it -- besides with great gratitude -- is as a challenge: an expectation for the future that we'd better find a way to live up to. Our lives have been blessedly full of such imperatives.

Some years ago, when Africa News Service seemed about to topple off the knife's edge of survival upon which we perpetually balanced, we were visited by a South African friend. She'd been in New York to accept an award for her husband, banned from travel for his role in the struggle. When she learned we were considering giving up the fight to keep Africa News alive, she was adamant. "I'm sorry," she told us. "You can't quit. We can't, so you can't."

And there is my favorite among the thousands of comments from allAfrica.com readers that said, simply, "All Africans are proud of you."

So how could we stop? It hasn't been our own determination that has sustained us. It has been the supportive bonds of mutual obligation and common purpose with colleagues who never wavered, no matter the cost.

In these desperate times, all of us in this room know that for so many of those we love and work with and for, the times have always been desperate. Much is being said now about the imperative to lift Afghanistan from its grinding poverty. So it needs to be said, also, that the 20 countries with the highest rates of under-five child mortality are Afghanistan -- and 19 African countries.

But we gathered here also know Africa's promise. We know its stories of aspiration and achievement, of inspiration and innovation, of creativity and courage.

At allAfrica.com, through the transformative miracle of the Internet, we shout those stories from our virtual global rooftop. Nearly 700 stories a day now, from more than 100 African media organizations, in both English and French, supplemented by the reporting and analysis of the amazing AllAfrica team.

You see us here, the two of us, because we stand on the shoulders of giants: the brave souls at many of our partner papers, who court arrest -- or worse -- with every report, and all the women and men who daily go about the business of creating civil society by building a free press across Africa.

And most of all, our own colleagues: our wonderful president, Amadou Mahtar Alioune Ba, who wanted to be here but is in Geneva forging collaborations with international organizations, and others, represented here (and would you all please stand) by our unexcelled-anywhere Executive Editor/Producer Akwe Amosu, responsible for what you see every day on allAfrica.com; Senior Correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, who in a decade with the BBC established the continent and world-wide reputation from which AllAfrica now benefits; Marie Nelson, who develops the revenue streams that sustain us; Bertie Howard, my friend and sister from our days as college roommates who heads Africa News Service; and finally Richard Tolbert, representing our dedicated group of investors, most of whom are African.

	AAI Chairman Kofi Appenteng presented the award.

[Kramer] We are so fortunate at AllAfrica to reflect the world as it could be. Although only two dozen strong, we're Muslim and Jewish and Christian; Arab and African and European and Native American and Asian, speaking, among us, some 17 languages.

This remarkable group has created one of the largest content sites on the Internet and made AllAfrica the largest distributor of news about Africa in the world. It is routinely assumed -- by those who know us only by our product -- that we must employ a 100 or more people.

But two things separate us from other online ventures. One is the dedication of the staff. The other is the powerful in-house data management and communications technology that our talented engineers were forced to develop - because we didn't have a spare couple of million dollars to commission it.

The very exciting prospect we now face is being able to deploy that system across Africa -- in ways that can help our partners, and other organizations as well, use technology more economically and effectively.

The people with whom we're privileged to work have secured a new space for Africa in the international marketplace of ideas. And we must not give it up. If before September 11th the task was to strengthen Africa's voice, now we must all work even harder, in our various ways, to prevent that voice from being eclipsed completely.

One of the previous awardees, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, recently challenged a group of South African reporters to be 'co-conspirators' in the one kind of advocacy a journalist is permitted to champion -- the struggle for the dignity of every person on the planet. By honoring us tonight, you honor all those co-conspirators who make our contributions possible.

Thank you.