Free In-Person and Online!

Join LaborArts and Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition at The New York Society for Ethical Culture for the sixteenth annual Clara Lemlich Social Activist Awards, honoring unsung activists–women who have been working for the larger good all their lives, in the tradition of those who sparked so many reforms in the aftermath of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Their many decades of brilliant activism have made real and lasting change in the world.
Reception follows.

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2026 Lemlich Honorees

Scotty Embree – worker organizer  – An organizer and activist by family tradition, Embree spent the first half of her career in nonprofits, academia, and organized labor, followed by years at Citibank, IBM-Kingston, CIBC Oppenheimer, AIG, and Alliance Bernstein. In retirement, she returned to working with children and communities, helping to organize the 400,000-person march for environmental change in 2014 and becoming an active member and Trustee of the New York Society for Ethical Culture.  She is active in multiple community groups, including Bloomingdale Aging in Place, Womanshare, a CSA/Community Supported Agriculture group, and Brooklyn Co-Housing.

Dawn Harris-Martine –  Harlem literacy guru – A New York City retired educator, toy enthusiast and small business owner in Harlem, Grandma Dawn is known for her heart of gold and her dedication to going beyond the classroom to encourage and teach children the skills needed to blossom in their lives. She started a bookmobile for children, and then a one-of-a-kind toy shop and activity space beloved by people of all ages in Harlem. With degrees in curriculum development and teaching and a specialty  in children’s literature, Harris-Martine  has put her 30-plus years of experience in education to great use, creating a welcoming bookstore and gathering place.

Shirley Kaplan – multifaceted artist and educator –  Kaplan is a painter, director, playwright and more.  Her paintings have been exhibited in museums and galleries including solo shows at The Stable, Terry Dintenfass, and Hacker Gallery in New York City. With an interest in collaborative and visual theatre projects, she is a co-founder of the OBIE-Award winning Paper Bag Players and founder/director of Painters’ Theatre.  She creates workshops based on personal stories and visual interaction for NYC museums.  Working with the Connecticut Commission on the Arts’ Project Create, her early work was part of the basis for one of the first community arts projects in the United States. She is the founder and co-Director of the Sarah Lawrence College Theatre Outreach program, directed the Theatre Program there from 1988 to 2006, and continued working with the graduate theatre lab to develop techniques in new media.

Dana Minaya – community activist –  Minaya is an educator, humanitarian and community leader.  After teaching science as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana, she helped Dr. Mario Salvadori develop his renowned architectural engineering STEAM program.   An innovator at the beginnings of the progressive schools movement, she focused on teaching young people the skills necessary to preserve our democracy.   She did development work in the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and Ethiopia, and brought pride to the ancestors of the freed slaves who migrated to Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic) from the United States in 1824 by researching and recording their histories.  With the New York Organ Donor Network she attended to families facing the imminent loss of a loved one.  In her community, she initiated volunteer gardening and innovative programming for seniors.  She is a climate activist and an active member of Christians for a Free Palestine, and enjoys making political art and encourages others to do the creative work needed for protest movements.

Eva Richter – migrant rights leader –  Born in Germany in 1932, Richter and her family escaped Hitler and the holocaust by fleeing to China, where she grew up for 13 years as a refugee from Nazi Germany in Tianjin, China. She lived through the turbulent years of the run-up to the Second World War, the Japanese occupation and the civil war that followed, until the Communist Revolution in 1949, when the family decided to leave for the United States. She was evacuated from China by the US Navy in 1948, traveling to the United States as a stateless person on documents provided by the United Nations International Refugee Organization.  She has advocated for the rights of displaced and marginalized people ever since, as a teacher and as an advocate,  and for the last 12 years at the United Nations.  She co-founded the NGO Committee on Migration at the UN.  She recently published a memoir about her childhood in China, Seeking Home.

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