Photos: Donna Aceto\Alex Levac
NEW YORK, NY, September 12, 2024 — Every year, Peace Action Fund of New York State (PAFNYS) brings leading peace activists together for the William Sloane Coffin, Jr. Peacemaker Awards ceremony and reception in New York City. The event — named to honor the legacy of the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., a civil rights and anti-war activist who championed the power of civil disobedience and peaceful protest in fighting injustice — recognizes peace activists who serve as a model for current and future changemakers.
This year, PAFNYS is pleased to present the 17th annual Peacemaker Awards to Leslie Cagan, former National Organizer for United for Peace & Justice, and Professor Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine and Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. The awards ceremony and reception will take place on Monday, September 30, 2024 beginning at 6pm at Scandinavia House in New York City. The awards ceremony will also be livestreamed virtually beginning at 6pm ET. Tickets are available for purchase at bit.ly/2024WSCAwds.
As part of the program, PAFNYS also presents 2 additional awards to honor young peace leaders who are already making an impact. The Don Shaffer Student Peacemaker Award – named for New York peace activist Don Shaffer – recognizes a campus Peace Action chapter for exceptional organizing work during the school year. The Holly Maguigan Peace with Justice Award — named for feminist activist, lawyer, and law professor, Holly Maguigan — is celebrating its inaugural year, and will honor the work of a young peace organizer who has exemplified the principles of peace with justice — one which cannot exist without the other. This year, PAFNYS will present the Don Shaffer Student Peacemaker Award to Stony Brook Peace Action, the student Peace Action chapter at Stony Brook University, for taking action on campus to protest U.S. support for the war in Gaza. Charlie Mandracchia, a recent graduate of Siena College, will receive the inaugural Holly Maguigan Peace with Justice Award for his commendable peace advocacy work.
The theme of this year’s event – Grassroots Organizing Against War in 2024– centers the courageous work of peace activists who are organizing to oppose war in the particularly fraught political environment of 2024. Throughout the year, New York grassroots peace groups have been at the forefront of pressuring U.S. leaders to work to end global conflict and confront the rising nuclear threat by pursuing diplomatic rather than militaristic solutions to conflict. In the spring, New York college campuses were the catalyst of a global student outcry against the war in Gaza, giving voice to the growing youth movement for a ceasefire and end of U.S. weapons support for genocide.
Peace Action Fund of New York State (PAFNYS) is pleased to honor the peacemakers of 2024 and invites the public to join the event, whether in person or via livestream.
EVENT DETAILS
The William Sloane Coffin, Jr. Peacemaker Awards ceremony will take place on Monday, September 30, 2024 at 6pm ET at Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue (between 37th and 38th Streets) in New York City. A livestream of the event will be available to those who cannot attend in person. After the awards presentation program, in-person attendees will enjoy a reception with light refreshments. Tickets are available at bit.ly/2024WSCAwds. For more information, please visit www.panys.org.
MORE ABOUT THE AWARDEES
2024 William Sloane Coffin, Jr. Peacemaker Awardees:
Leslie Cagan & Professor Rashid Khalidi
Leslie Cagan has organized in peace and justice movements for more than 60 years. From the Vietnam war to racism at home, nuclear disarmament to LGBTQ liberation, support of Palestinian rights to normalizing relations with Cuba, fighting sexism to confronting police brutality, she’s been a central organizer in many struggles. From 2002 to 2009, Leslie was the National Coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of 1,400 groups central to the movement against the war in Iraq. Her coalition-building and organizing skills have mobilized millions of people in many of the nation’s largest demonstrations, including the 1982 million-person Nuclear Disarmament demonstration in NYC; the historic 1987 lesbian/gay rights march on Washington; massive mobilizations against the Iraq War from 2003 to 2007; the 2014 People’s Climate March in NYC; and the 2019 Queer Liberation March in NYC on the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. Her writings appear in 10 anthologies and in scores of print and online outlets; she has done more workshops, conference presentations, and speeches at rallies than she can count.
Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. He received a B.A. from Yale University and a D. Phil. from Oxford University, and has previously taught at the Lebanese University, the American University of Beirut, and the University of Chicago. He was editor and later co-editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, and has served as President of the Middle East Studies Association. He is the author of eight books, including The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, and of over 100 scholarly articles and book chapters, and has co-edited three books.
2024 Don Shaffer Student Peacemaker Awardee:
Stony Brook University Peace Action
Stony Brook University Peace Action is the campus Peace Action chapter of Stony Brook University in Long Island. In the fall 2023 semester, this student chapter was one of the first chapters to respond to the genocide in Gaza after October 7th by taking action to demand an immediate ceasefire and end to U.S. weapons support for the war. Not only has the chapter served as a voice of leadership on campus for over 100 members, but they also extended their actions outside of campus by attending protests at land auctions on Long Island where occupied Palestinian land was being sold. The chapter worked with other groups including SUNY BDS and Students for Justice in Palestine’s campus chapter to organize rallies, sit-ins, walkouts, and even an encampment on their campus in May. The chapter was met with particularly harsh backlash in the spring semester from their university administration, facing arrest and suspension for their participation in peaceful protests.
2024 Holly Maguigan Peace with Justice Awardee:
Charlie Mandracchia
Charlie Mandracchia served as a student organizer in the PAFNYS Campus Organizing Program for two years before graduating from Siena College as a Political Science and Religious Studies major in the spring. Academically, he has a keen interest in post-conflict peace building and political structures in Latin America, and this fall, he will begin his PhD program in Political Science at the University at Albany. In the 2023-24 academic year, Charlie was active as a student peace organizer, educating his peers at Siena College about the war in Gaza and the need for a lasting ceasefire. He implemented “Justice Circles” in chapter meetings to build solidarity among students and faculty, raised over $3,000 for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund via on-campus events, and organized the writing of more than 150 letters to Senators Schumer and Gillibrand calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. This summer, Charlie was chosen to be honored with the inaugural Holly Maguigan Peace with Justice Award by PAFNYS’ New Leadership Council, an advisory group composed of former PAFNYS Campus Organizers who continue to strive for peace and justice after their graduation.
The Peace Action Fund of New York State (PAFNYS) is a non-partisan, non-profit 501(c)3 organization. It is dedicated to promoting the non-violent resolution of conflict, the abolition of nuclear weapons, halting the global spread of conventional arms, building a human rights culture and supporting human needs instead of militarism. It pursues these goals through the production and dissemination of educational materials for the public, activists and policy makers, as well as through community organizing initiatives and public outreach. PAFNYS is a companion organization to Peace Action New York State (PANYS), the New York affiliate of national Peace Action, the largest grassroots peace organization in the United States.
Since 2007, PAFNYS has presented the William Sloane Coffin, Jr. Peacemaker Award to individuals who serve as models for current and future changemakers. Previous recipients of the Peacemaker Award include Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and grassroots group, Afghans for a Better Tomorrow (2023); Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher of The Nation (2022); athlete-activists Etan Thomas and Renee Montgomery (2021), voting rights activist Desmond Meade (2020), climate activist Bill McKibben (2019), anti-war organization US Labor Against the War (2018), and indigenous activist LaDonna Brave Bull Allard (2017). For more information about PAFNYS/PANYS or the William Sloane Coffin, Jr. Peacemaker Award, go to www.panys.org or email [email protected].
