The Stonewall Bar Association of Georgia will honor the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia and State Rep. Simone Bell on Oct. 28 at the organization’s 16th annual awards dinner.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed will be the featured keynote speaker at the dinner.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia will receive the Outstanding Service to the Stonewall Community Award for its work educating Georgia law enforcement on the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The law makes it a federal crime to attack a person because of his or her sexual orientation. Georgia has no statewide hate crimes law.

Georgia Rep. Simone Bell (D-District 58) will also receive the Conspicuous Service to the Stonewall Community Award for her work as the country’s first openly lesbian African-American state legislator.

“The Stonewall Bar is honored to have Mayor Reed as our keynote speaker,” said Jeff Cleghorn, board president of the Stonewall Bar Association, in a press release.

“As attorneys and legal professionals, Stonewall Bar Association members often focus on individual cases of where the law does not meet reality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Georgians.

“That is why it is important to have trailblazers like Rep. Simone Bell working to enact new laws that eliminate those reality gaps, and then to enforce new anti-discrimination laws when they are passed, as the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District has taken the lead in doing.”

The dinner will be held at the Greystone Building in Piedmont Park at 6 p.m. on Oct. 28. For more information, please visit www.stonewallbar.org.