On Sunday July 24, 2005, Kanye West was presented with the 2005 Million Man March Image Award on behalf of the Board of Directors of Million Man March 10 Anniversary, The Millions More Movement.

Kanye West graciously accepted the Millions More Movement Image Award for Ourstanding Achievement in 2005.

Here is a part of his acceptance speech:

Kanye West: (at 6:00 mark) And, it’s interesting that we just had a meeting in the office and it was brought up about, and its funny that I brought up in a song about, you know the government administers AIDS. I think the figure I learned when I was at Live 8 was that there was over 6,000 people in Africa dying everyday from AIDS.

But, I said the government administers the AIDS.

This is the whole thing. If you’ve got something that you want to get to, and there’s a people that are strong people, a people that are warriors, in order to get to their resources you’ve got to weaken them. What else has the strongest people you know in more of a fetal position than the AIDS epidemic?

And, then you hear about this. I say in another song, I said, you know the best medicine goes to people that’s paid. If Magic Johnson got a cure for AIDS and all the broke mothers passed away. So that means a cure for AIDS. So who has a cure?

Maybe the same people that administer it that want to get to the diamonds (applause)

So a lot of these things, I don’t even set out… Really, I’m an entertainer. That’s one of the reasons why I think God let me live. But, there must have been a deal made when He spared my life in an accident. He said at any given moment I’m gonna just use you. I’m gonna speak through you at any given moment and you gotta just run with it…