2025 Dignity, Community, and Power Award Gala Honorees
Brad Lander has tirelessly served our city for decades as an organizer, City Council Member and now New York City Comptroller. He founded the progressive caucus in the City Council and has been principled in ensuring that our city has strong, progressive leadership. As Comptroller, he has championed public financing for climate solutions, and shone light on the endemic neglect of conditions in NYCHA buildings, emergency shelters and City jails. Brad has worked to make New York City more affordable and pushed for policies to improve the lives of workers, tenants and immigrants.
Our members know that Brad will always have their backs; he’s shown it time and time again. He risked arrest alongside our members fighting for a fair wage and safe working conditions for Carwasheros – helping us to win that fight. He worked with our movement to pass the Community Safety Act to curb the abuses of Stop and Frisk. And he continues to show up to support our member-led actions across issues and across the city.
This summer we have been particularly moved and deeply grateful as Brad accompanies immigrants facing the threat of detention and deportation to court. He has returned there repeatedly, without fanfare, and encouraged his colleagues to do the same. We’re thrilled to honor Brad as one of our honorees this year!
Chase Strangio, Co-Director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ+ and HIV Rights Project, is a committed advocate for the rights of transgender people. He’s worked on some of the most high-profile legal battles relating to LGBTQ rights, and was the first openly trans person to argue at the Supreme Court. He argued the 2024 case challenging the ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth in Tennessee, the 2015 legalization of same-sex marriage, and many other cases resisting the virulent attempts to prevent transgender people from existing in public.
Throughout his career he has supported trans immigrant and incarcerated communities as the former Director of Prisoner Justice Initiatives at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project; and as the co-founder of the Lorena Borjas Community Fund, which provides direct bail/bond assistance to LGBTQ immigrants.
Chase has also organized closely alongside the members of our TRIP (Trans Immigrant Project) committee; and together we fight for the rights of transgender immigrants and workers, and against the policies and rhetoric that seek to dehumanize us. No matter what work he’s involved in, Chase always uplifts how the fight for transgender healthcare, education, and history affects us all – particularly working class, Black and brown, and immigrant communities. We are proud to honor Chase Strangio and his critically important work at our gala this year!
Make the Road NY is proud to be honoring our sister organization, The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA). CHIRLA organizes and provides legal services to immigrant communities across California and beyond, fighting for healthcare, mobility, fair work and education. Founded in Los Angeles in 1988, they now work out of multiple locations in the United States and Mexico for the international movement for immigrant justice.
CHIRLA has been an integral part of building a movement grounded in local organizing and strengthened by a national vision and strategy. Their team works tirelessly to protect, defend and expand the rights of immigrants – in one month alone, fielding 10,000 calls from community members asking for support for detained loved ones.
This year, as Los Angeles became the target and testing ground for the federal government’s immigration enforcement, CHIRLA was at the forefront of defending immigrant communities and those who support them – in the face of great personal and organizational risk. And just a few months ago, CHIRLA, along with a coalition of organizations won a restraining order against ICE racially profiling and detaining people without due process.
CHIRLA fights bravely for our people and for our democracy with clarity and purpose. They demonstrate what it means to stand up and lead with courage – all while remaining rooted in community. We are truly honored to celebrate CHIRLA, led by their visionary Executive Director Angelica Salas, on October 16th!