Five Brooklyn Leaders Selected to Receive the Second Edition of The Just Brooklyn Prize
Winners were chosen by a committee of esteemed Brooklynites, including Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, Dr. Uche Blackstock and Maya Wiley, among others
The Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation’s Social Justice Fund and Brooklyn Org announced the recipients of the second annual Just Brooklyn Prize, an award that celebrates five outstanding champions in the fight for social justice in Brooklyn. Each winner of the Just Brooklyn Prize received an unrestricted $20,000 grant in recognition of their contributions to the pursuit of social justice in the borough.
Representing a diversity of backgrounds and professional pursuits – media and film, social and criminal justice, labor organizing, and immigration – the winners will be honored with an award ceremony at Barclays Center on Wednesday, October 30th featuring a keynote address by Maya Wiley, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
The 2024 recipients of the Just Brooklyn Prize are:
● Carolyn A. Butts: Founder and Director of African Voices Communications Inc and Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival & Lecture Series
● Chino Hardin: Co-Executive Director, Center for NuLeadership on Human Justice and Healing
● Christine Yvette Lewis: Organizer, Culture Outreach Coordinator, and Secretary of Domestic Workers United
● Derrick Hamilton: Co-Founder, Family and Friends of the Wrongfully Convicted
● Ninaj Raoul: Director and Co-Founder, Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees
“We are thrilled to bring back the Just Brooklyn Prize. This year, we are honoring five remarkable social justice leaders dedicated to both their ideals and their communities,” said Clara Wu Tsai, founder of the Social Justice Fund and owner of the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and Barclays Center. “We are proud to support them and their dedication to a more just and equitable Brooklyn.”
“Brooklyn Org extends our deepest gratitude to the Social Justice Fund for this extraordinary gift to our borough’s unsung heroes,” said Brooklyn Org President and CEO Dr. Jocelynne Rainey. “Every day, nonprofit and community leaders quietly and steadfastly dedicate themselves to making our communities stronger, fairer, and more just, and we are honored to be part of delivering this special recognition to these five fantastic leaders.”
The 2024 Just Brooklyn Prize winners were chosen by a selection committee of Brooklynites, including:
● Sharon Daughtry, Executive Director, Downtown Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance
● Rev. Dr. Emma Jordan-Simpson, President, Auburn Theological Seminary
● C. Zawadi Morris, 2023 Just Brooklyn Prize Winner, Founder and Publisher, BK Reader
● Randy Peers, President and CEO, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce
● Antonio Reynoso, Brooklyn Borough President
● Maya Wiley, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
● Angela Yee, Host, Way Up With Angela Yee
● Jo-Ann Yoo, Executive Director, Asian American Federation
About the Social Justice Fund
The Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation launched the Social Justice Fund in 2020 in Brooklyn, New York, to focus on the inequities and work to support economic mobility within underserved communities across the borough. Driven by a $50 million commitment over ten years, the Social Justice Fund invests in programs that are scalable and confront the root causes of racial gaps in education, health, and wealth.
About Brooklyn Org
Brooklyn Org is a champion for Brooklyn bringing together community changemakers – the families and businesses, the grassroots leaders and growing companies, and local nonprofits and the communities they serve – to be a new model for local philanthropy, built from the ground up, in pursuit of a more equitable and just borough. Since its founding in 2009 as Brooklyn Community Foundation, Brooklyn Org has moved over $120 million to nonprofits through its strategic grantmaking and Donor Advised Funds, while driving action to address urgent crises and long-term change in Brooklyn. Each year, Brooklyn Org partners with Brooklyn residents to invest more than $5 million in high-impact nonprofits advancing racial justice at every level across the borough. Brooklyn Org ensures that Brooklyn’s challenges are met with solutions, ideas are met with resources and inequality is met with justice.
