Don Lemon is a very outspoken man. Couple that with being Black in America and having internationally viewed platform and you have a force to be reckoned with.

On Saturday, the CNN anchor was honored for his contributions in promotions equal rights for members of the LGBTQ community at GLAAD’s 2017 Gala in San Francisco.

“I have been a gay Black man all my life. And so, I ain’t scared of nobody,” he said at the beginning of his acceptance speech after being presented with the Davidson/Valentini Award by fellow CNN commentator Van Jones, Lemon detail what he had to overcome to in order to get to where is was today.

“I came from nothing. I came from a single mom,” he reflected. “People told me that I could never ever make it. My journalism professor in Louisiana State University told me I would never make it as a journalist. And I spent my entire career, my entire life since I was twenty-something, proving that person wrong. But on top of that, wanting to make my mother proud!”

While Lemon thanked the organization for all of its hard work, he also took time to remind the audience that there’s still a lot of work to be done.

“I remember when there was no Will, there was no Grace, there was no Jack, there was no Karen on television,” he said. “I remember when people didn’t cover gay pride events and GLAAD events. When those events barely got media coverage. And when they covered them, they covered the most extreme parts of our culture…”

Congrats to Mr. Lemon.