An award-winning civil rights activist acknowledged Saturday the difficult road ahead for the next generation of black leaders as they “finish the unfinished task.”

Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957, spoke to more than 200 guests Saturday at the second annual Image Awards ceremony hosted by the University’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Lowery talked about the national presence of the black community.

“You are the brightest, most promising generation in our history,” Lowery said. “You’re also too fragile.”

Youth fall easily into temptation, he said, often trying to assume adult privileges without accepting adult responsibilities.

Lowery, who was imprisoned in 1968 after protesting the rights of garbage workers, said students need to “toughen up.”

“It’s that kind of toughness that enabled us,” he said. “We’ve demonstrated how to turn adversity into opportunity. We challenged America to live up to her claims. To be the land of the free.”

A greater black presence in society leaves America better off, Lowery said. He detailed his point with a story about a restaurant waitress who, during times of segregation, was forced to refuse him service.

After weeks of denying him, the waitress “choked up,” Lowery said, when she was able to serve him after civil rights legislation passed.

“Not only was I free, but she was free to serve,” he said.

Lowery, a staunch supporter of presidential candidate Barack Obama, said he sees a “new America being born.”

“Either a woman or an African American is going to be the next president of the United States,” he said. “I see change in the air.”

Lowery said blacks have a “moral imperative” to take up the ballot and fight against the system.

History plays a key role in the future of blacks in America, he said.

“If you don’t know where you came from, you won’t know when somebody’s taking you back.”

Audience members finished many of Lowery’s sentences and gave him a standing ovation when he was given the Lifetime Freedom Fighter Award by NAACP members.

“We’re not where we were but we’re not yet where we ought to be,” he said. “I’m not passing the torch. Get your own torch.”