ABOUT THE FUND
Special Awards
Jessie Lloyd O'Connor
Jessie Lloyd O’Connor was a labor journalist, organizer and an early member of our Board who is remembered for her lifelong commitment to peace and justice and, with her husband the author Harvey O’Connor, opening heart and home to activists. We don’t always think of the joy she brought us in her home, filled with art and music — a respite from the long and exhausting battles against repression and war. They were glad to open their doors to the next generation of progressives and gave many of us the love and laughter we needed. Between strategy sessions and periodically intense debates, the O’Connor’s made sure we created music and told stories that lightened the load and refreshed the spirit. This award is given to a grantee who embodies the spirit of the O'Connor's and organizes in their legacy in the arts, labor, and journalism.
Marilyn Buck was a political prisoner and poet who worked in solidarity with Black Liberation struggles to end white supremacy. She received grants from the Fund in 2003 and 2004, and died of a rare cancer in 2010. Marilyn supported the Fund with regular donations and supportive notes from her jail cell, and with a generous bequest following her death. To honor her memory and legacy, the Marilyn Buck Award is given to an incarcerated or formerly incarcerated activist working for justice.
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Marilyn Buck
Lisa Brock
Barbara Ransby
Drs. Lisa Brock and Barbara Ransby are both Chicago-based historian/scholar-activists who organized against South-African Apartheid. The Brock/Ransby Award was created to honor their work and recognize a graduate student activist who, like them possesses a focus in international solidarity and is rooted in racial justice.
Anne Braden was a Trustee of the Fund for many years and in her honor, we recognize an undergraduate who reflects her deep commitment to organizing in the South, who demonstrates her courage and integrity in the face of adversity, who possesses her no-nonsense, grassroots, working-class orientation, and who, like Anne, recognizes the centrality of race in every facet of movement work.
Anne Braden