Quinn Delaney
President of Akonadi Foundation
Philanthropy Honoree
Quinn Delaney is the founder and president of the Akonadi Foundation whose mission is to support the development of powerful social change movements to eliminate structural racism and create a racially just society. Akonadi Foundation was founded in 1999 and gives out approximately 3 million dollars in grants annually. Quinn is a new board member of the Center for Community Change, and also serves on the boards of the Democracy Alliance, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center and the Oakland Museum of California. Civil rights and civil liberties have been a life-long passion and Quinn has worked with the ACLU and other civil rights organizations in many capacities. Quinn works to create a bridge between politics and grassroots movements.
George Gresham
President of 1199 SEIU United Health Care Workers East
Labor Partnership Honoree
George Gresham was elected 1199SEIU President in April 2007. He is the fifth president in the union’s 75-year history, representing 350,000 healthcare workers throughout New York State, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, District of Columbia and Florida. In June and July 2009, George directed the successful collective bargaining with the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes on behalf of 135,000 New York metropolitan area members at 87 institutions. The contract expands job security guarantees, secures health benefits, improves the pension benefits and gives wage increases through April 2015. The grandson of a Virginia sharecropper, George spent his early childhood in the segregated school system of the state. Eventually, his father became a trucker and later a member and activist in the Teamsters Union up north. The economic impact of a good Union job on the family’s living standards was not lost on George Gresham.
Congressman Raúl Grijalva
United States Representative, Arizona 7th District
Public Service Honoree
Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva is serving his 5th term in Congress. A native of Tucson, Arizona and son of a bracero, Raúl has been advocating for his community’s needs for more than 30 years. Before entering Congress, Raúl served as Pima County Supervisor and Tucson Unified School District Board member, where he rose to chairman of both bodies. His political career stemmed from his advocacy during the Chicano Movement, striving to ensure that parks, health centers, and schools were accessible and in locations to serve all members of the community. Raúl serves on the Education and Labor Committee and Committee on Natural Resources. He was recently elected as co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, where his work prioritizes reinvesting in community infrastructure in the United States, our public education system, an alternative energy green jobs creation initiative, equity in education, and pursuing comprehensive, humane immigration reform. Raúl, his wife Ramona and three daughters Adelita, Raquel and Marisa, have a family dedication and lifelong commitment to improving the quality of life in the community.
OneAmerica
Award will be accepted by Pramila Jayapal, Founder and Executive Director
Community Organizing and Leadership Honoree
Pramila Jayapal is the founder and executive director of OneAmerica. Started in the wake of 9/11, OneAmerica has grown to become the largest immigrant advocacy organization in Washington State and a leading force for immigrant rights nationally. Under Pramila’s leadership, OneAmerica has organized tens of thousands of diverse immigrants around immigration reform, immigrant integration and racial profiling; registered and mobilized over 25,000 New American voters; built unusual alliances; and achieved significant policy change. Pramila is an immigrant from India and has spent over twenty years working for social justice in the U.S. and internationally. She is also a published writer of essays and a book, and the proud mother of a 14-year old son. She has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work, including being named by the Puget Sound Business Journal as one of 20 Women of Influence, whose work “moves the needle on critical issues.”
Frances Fox Piven
Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology of CUNY
Activism Honoree
Prof. Frances Fox Piven is a scholar-citizen, equally at home in the university and in the world of politics. She collaborated with the late George A. Wiley, the leader of the 1960s welfare rights movement in the United States, and developed the strategy that led to a liberalization of welfare in the 1960s. These reforms resulted in a major reduction in extreme poverty. She was a founder in 1983 of Human SERVE, an organization that promoted the idea that if citizens were allowed to register to vote when they apply for aid from government programs or for drivers licenses, historic administrative obtacles on the right to vote could be overcome. Human SERVE’s approach was incorporated in the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, popularly known as the “motor voter bill.” Today, she is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate School and University Center, CUNY, where her accomplishments as a scholar are intertwined with her political reform efforts.
Voces de la Frontera
Award will be accepted by Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Executive Director
Community Organizing and Leadership Honoree
Christine Neumann-Ortiz is the founding executive director of Voces de la Frontera in Wisconsin, and a state and national leader in the immigrant rights movement. Through her leadership, Voces has grown from a small, grassroots worker center to a state and national leader in the immigrant rights movement. Voces is the largest Latino membership based organization in Wisconsin. Since 2006, Voces has mobilized nearly half a million people in mass marches, the largest of which was 100,000 people on May 1, 2011. Voces has won several systemic changes including suspension of Wisconsin’s social security no-match letters and passage of in-state tuition for undocumented students. Christine is a nationally-recognized spokesperson for immigrant rights, and is currently organizing in alliance with unions to fight unprecedented attacks on labor, to defend in-state tuition, and to defeat an Arizona copy-cat immigration bill.