2022 FREDERICK DOUGLASS HONOREES
CAAAV
What does long-term powerbuilding look like? CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities. The organization was founded in 1986 by working-class Asian women to build power in Asian communities against rising police and hate violence. They received their first North Star Fund grant in 1987, and have been a North Star Fund grantee continuously since 2012. In the decades we have been in partnership with them, they have not shied away from taking on any struggle facing New Yorkers, pursuing their own campaigns while also joining other strategic coalitions that affect their membership.
Part of CAAAV’s magic has been their ability to build powerful relationships between Asian communities and other communities of struggle by making clear the connections between racism, greed and anti-immigrant policies. CAAAV has tackled some of the largest and most destructive forces harming New Yorkers.
They’ve confronted big developers with their own community-created development plans. They were part of the powerful coalition that has brought reform to decades of cruel, racist punishments for cannabis. They’ve been active leaders within New York’s movement for police accountability, organizing for an end to the violence directed at communities of color by the NYPD.
We’re honoring CAAAV for decades of centering the leadership of their Asian community members, being a powerful connector of movements and winning campaigns for the benefit of millions of New Yorkers.
Hudson Catskill Housing Coalition
Hudson Catskill Housing Coalition is a Black-led locally grown organizing project that has expanded their reach dramatically since the start of the pandemic and the uprisings of 2020. They’re tackling a specific issue—housing—through an intersectional lens. They are holding out a vision that includes long-time residents across the Hudson Valley and Catskill region being able to afford to stay in their homes and thrive. Their Black-led organizing approach is making all the right connections to advance their vision. They’ve been a North Star Fund grantee since 2017.
Hudson and Catskill New York are rural communities in New York that have seen a sudden and alarming influx of new residents during the pandemic. These new residents have abruptly increased housing prices and changed the look of the community, as if it were not already a place with people in it. This sort of periodic gentrification of the Hudson Valley is a familiar, harmful pattern going back at least 100 years.
Hudson Catskill Housing Coalition is part of the powerful statewide movement that has passed and is now defending no-cause evictions both on the streets of local towns as well as in the legislature. Their campaign for the Hudson Breathe Act identifies the role of policing in controlling their communities and proposes concrete changes. They have documented the stories of local residents in a video series shining a light on the effects of economic displacement.
We’re honoring Hudson Catskill Housing Coalition for their ability to uplift Black rural voices and connect across movements to shift power towards rural communities.
Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice
Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice (YMPJ) was founded in 1994 and is currently led by a former youth organizer from the neighborhood who grew up in the social justice community and saw the long-term impact of racism and disinvestment in his community. In the decades since, YMPJ has combined community organizing focused on racial and environmental justice with direct services and advocacy, and winning generational victories for the Bronx. They’ve been a North Star Fund grantee since 2018.
YMPJ has invested in community youth across all ages from grade school to high school, with an array of programs including arts, wellness programming, and education for liberation. The resulting activists have identified and strategized to transform the urban landscape of the Bronx. They’ve worked in coalition with fellow Bronx and citywide groups in reclaiming the Bronx River and its waterfront, decommissioning a highway, reimagining a public plaza and open market, and activating these and other underutilized public spaces with the community and for the benefit of the community. The resulting spaces are core to economic and food justice for local communities.
YMPJ has been part of a South Bronx that has been fighting forward through self-determination, community ownership and power building—creating the vibrant, thriving neighborhoods Bronxites deserve.
We’re recognizing Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice for their generational victories that are transforming the leaders and the urban landscape of the Bronx.