This week, ERASE Racism, a Long Island-based nonprofit dedicated to exposing forms of racial discrimination and advocating for laws and policies that help eliminate racial disparities, honored LDF’s work.
We are humbled to have been awarded the 2014 Abraham Krasnoff Courage and Commitment Award for our “outstanding advocacy in advancing civil rights and the rule of the law.”
Vincent Southerland, Senior Counsel in the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Criminal Justice Practice, accepted the award on behalf of the organization.
The Abraham Krasnoff Courage and Commitment Award was established in June 2006 in honor of its first recipient, a founding board member and generous contributor to ERASE Racism, Abraham Krasnoff. The award recognized Abe’s bold leadership, wise counsel, generosity and steadfast commitment to addressing institutional racism.
Abe was well known for his professional achievement as Chairman of the Pall Corporation, for his philanthropy, and for his many civic and community activities. With his death in February 2007, Long Island lost a great leader.
ERASE Racism selects recipients for the Abraham Krasnoff Courage and Commitment Award who share ERASE Racism’s zeal for racial equity and who, in the spirit of Abe Krasnoff, are making a difference in the fight against racism.
Other honorees included the Anti Discrimination Center and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
The Bluestone Organization received ERASE Racism’s Corporate Leadership Award for increasing affordable housing on Long Island. Henry Schein, Inc. was awarded with ERASE Racism’s Corporate Leadership Award for its commitment to the underserved through access to health care and opportunity.
Since 2001, through research, education, policy advocacy and civic engagement, Erase Racism has worked to bring racial equity to Long Island by addressing housing discrimination, racial disparities in education and public health. Erase Racism’s more recent work includes efforts to ensure access the non-discriminatory distribution of Hurricane Sandy Relief Funds and housing discrimination litigation against the Village of Mineola for discriminatory conduct by property owners and managers against African Americans.
