Dear Friends,
Each year the Fellowship of Reconciliation awards an international, a national and a Nyack-area local peace award to individuals or organizations whose commitment to peace, justice, and reconciliation is recognized as a life-long commitment.
The International Pfeffer Peace Award was established in 1989 by Leo and Freda Pfeffer to honor those working for peace and justice throughout the world. This year, the prize is awarded to the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, a global alliance of Wise Women elders and Medicine Women.
The 13 Grandmothers' mission statement states: We represent a global alliance of prayer, education and healing for our Mother Earth, all Her inhabitants, all the children, and for the next seven generations to come. We are deeply concerned with the unprecedented destruction of our Mother Earth and the destruction of indigenous ways of life. We believe the teachings of our ancestors will light our way through an uncertain future. We look to further our vision through the realization of projects that protect our diverse cultures: lands, medicines, language and ceremonial ways of prayer and through projects that educate and nurture our children.
 Since the first council in upstate New York nine years ago, the Grandmothers have completed ten gatherings to each other's homelands to cultivate their unified prayer for peace. This summer, the Grandmothers traveled to Stockholm, Sweden in honor of the Sami People, and to Karlsruhe, Germany for the "Be the Change Grandmothers Gathering." The Grandmothers' teachings have also inspired sacred activism worldwide through their book, Grandmothers Counsel the World: Women Elders Offer their Vision for Our Planet, translated into eight languages, and their 2009 documentary film, For the Next 7 Generations. Their story is told in detail in this profile on FOR's web site.
On October 29th, FOR Executive Director Kristin Stoneking will present the Pfeffer Award to five members of the Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers at the Albert Schweitzer Institute in Hamden, Connecticut. The free, public event will take place at the Burt Khan Gymnasium of Quinnipiac University at 7:00 p.m. FOR is grateful to ASI for graciously including our award ceremony.
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Award was established by FOR in 1979 to recognize unheralded persons or groups working in the United States in the tradition of Rev. Dr. King. This year the award will be presented to two of Dr. King's close friends and associates, both of who are leaders from the African-American-led freedom movement and who continue to be deeply active in current social justice movements: Dr. Dorothy Foreman Cotton and Dr. Vincent Gordon Harding.
Dr. Dorothy Cotton is celebrated as the director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's (SCLC) Citizenship Education Program (CEP), a position that situated her in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s inner circle of executive staff. Cotton was the highest-ranking woman in SCLC during most of the 1960s and was the engine behind CEP's fundamental role in the civil rights movement. Cotton's new memoir, If Your Back's Not Bent, is an intimate personal account from the front lines of those turbulent times.
 After Dr. King's death, Cotton served as the vice president for field operations for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia. She later served as the southeastern regional director of ACTION, the federal government's agency for volunteer programs, and has traveled extensively throughout the world to address social and humanitarian issues.
Her lifework is the inspiration for the Dorothy Cotton Institute (DCI), an education and resource center with the mission to develop, nurture, and train leaders for a global human rights movement. A project of the Center for Transformative Action, DCI offers programs to build a network and community of civil and human rights leadership; and explores, shares, and promotes practices that transform individuals and communities, opening new pathways to peace, justice, and healing.
In October 2012, DCI launched its first major international initiative through its Palestinian/Israeli Nonviolence Project. A delegation of U.S. civil rights leaders, both veteran and younger human rights activists, went to Israel and the West Bank to meet with Palestinians and Israelis at the forefront of a grassroots nonviolent movement. This historic coalition of African Americans and Jews included Dorothy Cotton and Vincent Harding, as well as their colleague Clayborne Carson (shown in above photo, at right; courtesy of William Neumann Photography).
Dr. Vincent Harding is an acclaimed historian, religious scholar, teacher, and activist. In the early 1960s, he and spouse Rosemarie Freeney Harding moved to Atlanta to co-found Mennonite House and travel throughout the South as reconciliation agents and nonviolence trainers. The couple assisted in the anti-segregation campaigns of the SCLC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Harding occasionally drafted speeches for Dr. King, including his famous "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" speech, delivered on April 4, 1967 at The Riverside Church in New York City, exactly a year before his assassination.
 Following Dr. King's death in 1968, Harding served as the first director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center, and he then founded the Institute of the Black World. He has taught and published widely, and his numerous books include Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero.
Harding currently chairs the Veterans of Hope Project, which he co-founded in 1997 with Rosemarie Harding. The primary mission of the Project, based at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, is to encourage a healing-centered, intergenerational approach to social justice activism that recognizes the interconnectedness of spirit, creativity, and citizenship. Through educational materials designed to support reconciliation, nonviolence, and an appreciation for the value of indigenous and folk wisdom for contemporary times, Dr. Harding and other "long distance runners" of the movement pass on the values, faith, and practices that have guided their lives and work.
FOR will present the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award to Dorothy Cotton and Vincent Harding on December 10th at an event sponsored by the Dorothy Cotton Institute in Ithaca, New York. Details to be announced.
The Nyack-Area Peace Award was established in 2006 to recognize unheralded groups or individuals who work tirelessly for justice and reconciliation in the region where FOR-USA is headquartered. This year, FOR honors two peace activists at the forefront of a heated civil rights struggle. Steve and Emilia White rally, campaign, organize, advocate, and find innovative ways to shine light on a situation that is depriving children of an adequate education and fracturing a community.
Like Lawrence, Long Island and Lakewood, New Jersey, the Whites' community has experienced an Orthodox Jewish influx that has altered the demographics and, ultimately, the governance of their township. A majority of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews were elected to the East Ramapo School Board and prioritized interests in the yeshivas or private schools their children attend; tragically, the needs of the public schools, with a student population that includes about 90% students of color, mostly Haitian and Latino, have been ignored.
 In addition to organizing rallies, school board elections, and attempts to reconcile with members of the school board, the Whites (pictured above with son Anthony) have expanded outreach and publicity through YouTube videos and an informative website. In May 2008, Emilia began videotaping the school board meetings to expose what was really happening and to inform the larger community. With the growing attention to those YouTube videos, Emilia has encountered strong opposition from the board including threats of arrest and continuous harassment, yet she perseveres. Their story is told in detail in this profile on FOR's web site.
The Nyack-Area Peace Award will be presented to Steve and Emilia White at FOR's annual Winter Solstice Celebration on Sunday afternoon, December 22, 2013. The festivities will take place at FOR's national headquarters in Upper Nyack, details to be announced. The Whites strongest hope for this special recognition is that it brings more notice to help the cause. Please support their efforts to save the Ramapo schools and save a community by visiting The Power of Ten.
For more information about FOR's Peace Award winners or award presentations, please contact me, Linda Kelly, by responding to this e-mail or by phone at (845) 358-4601 ext. 35.
Linda Kelly
Peace Awards Coordinator
Fellowship of Reconciliation |
