This year’s honorees:

Zephyr Teachout for her progressive positions and voice on social and economic justice issues. Zephyr Teachout is an attorney, author, and Associate Professor of Law at Fordham University. She is an outspoken advocate for social and economic justice. She volunteered at Occupy Wall Street, where she educated activists in corporate law and policy. She was the first national director of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes transparency and accountability in government. She later served on the board of advisors of Let America Vote, an organization that aims to end voter suppression. In 2015, she became CEO and board chair of the campaign finance reform-oriented organization Mayday PAC. In October 2018 she was appointed to the editorial board of The Nation. She has had a strong public voice on issues including a higher minimum wage, increased spending on public infrastructure, a ban on fracking, an end to high-stakes testing in schools, and campaign finance reform, specifically working to overturn Citizens United. Her book, Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin’s Snuff Box to Citizens United, was published by Harvard University Press in 2014, and she was one of the initial attorneys on the first Emoluments lawsuit against Donald Trump.

Ray Acheson for her leadership as Director of Reaching Critical Will, and for her indispensable work on the United Nations Treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Ray Acheson is the Director of Reaching Critical Will, the disarmament program of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). WILPF was founded in 1915 to challenge militarism, patriarchy, and capitalism as root causes of war. Ray continues this work today by bringing an intersectional feminist approach to disarmament and anti-war work at the UN and beyond. Ray represents WILPF on the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for highlighting the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and for working with governments to negotiate and adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Ray also works to prevent the development of fully autonomous weapons with the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots; to challenge the international arms trade and war profiteering, and to bring feminist analysis to weapons and war. Ray has an Honours BA in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Toronto and an MA in Poli-tics from The New School for Social Research. She is currently a Visiting Research Collaborator at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security, and is completing a book about the nuclear ban and anti-nuclear activism to be published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2020.

Jim Anderson for his leadership as President of Peace Action New York State, and for his lifelong commitment to peace and social justice. Jim Anderson has been a long-time civil rights, peace and social justice activist throughout the state of New York. He is deeply engaged in international intersectional organizing across issue areas. In 2017, he was invited to Japan to participate in the World Conference Against the Hydrogen and Atomic Bombs and was invited to France later that year to participate in Le Mouvement de la Paix’s – Congress National. This year Jim was elected to the national board of Peace Action. He begins a second term on the national board of Campaign for Peace, Disarmament, and Common Security and was invited to serve on Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons. Jim is the President of Peace Action New York State and is State Vice President of Citizen Action of New York. He is a founding member of the National Black United Front which led the formation of the Third World and Progressive People’s Coalition. Jim served as an organizer and leader for the Peace Contingents of both the 2014 NYC and the 2017 D.C. climate marches, and also the Women’s March to Ban the Bomb.

The guests enjoyed a delicious buffet supplied by Bassett Caterers and listened with great attention as each honoree addressed the gathering. Thank you to everyone who attended, contributed, sponsored, advertised or otherwise supported the 2019 PathMakers to Peace Gala. We appreciate your continued support, energy, and generosity.

A special thank you to Matt Weinstein for the beautiful photos, Annie Yan for video recording the Gala (available now on our Youtube channel), and to Christine Lewis of Domestic Workers United for her uplifting vocal performance. Our gratitude goes to Veronica Nunn for emceeing, Plymouth Church for hosting us, and to Rev. Brett Younger for his inspiring welcoming remarks. The full PathMakers to Peace program is available online. Please be sure to patron our advertisers!

Thank you to the following for their extra effort to make this event a success!

Thank you to all those who joined the PatMakers to Peace 2019 Host Committee!