Three young women leaders of Freedom Summer/Freedom Fall '96, a project of the Feminist Majority Foundation, won "Gloria Steinem" Awards from the Ms. Foundation for their work against California's anti-affirmative-action Proposition 209.

Justine Andronici, Director of Freedom Summer/Freedom Fall; Dee Martin, Northern Coordinator; and Nohelia Canales, full-time intern, were honored at the ninth annual Gloria Steinem awards banquet in New York City. The three leaders, all under 25 years old, are the youngest awardees in the history of the Gloria Steinem awards. The Ms. Foundation is a national multi-issue, multi-racial women's fund.

"Freedom Summer and Fall '96 were named after Freedom Summer 1964," explained Martin, "when students got together in Mississippi to register impoverished African-Americans to vote. Young people said that, while some of their predecessors believed in segregation and discrimination, they wouldn't stand for it. In Freedom Summer/Fall '96 we were sending the same message."

Martin coordinated trainings for the project in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Over the summer and fall the project trained a total of 300 full-time interns, 700 part-time interns, and more than 5,000 volunteers.

Andronici oversaw statewide coordination of Freedom Summer/Fall activities, including organizing the "Save the Dream" campus bus tour during which the Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal traveled throughout California with United Farm Workers Vice President Dolores Huerta, NOW President Patricia Ireland and Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Canales deferred entering medical school at the Mayo Clinic so she could organize the campaign in the Latino community in East Los Angeles. "I am a product of affirmative action," said Canales. She participated in a program called Minority Access to Research Careers in college, and took English as a Second Language classes as a child.

Although Prop 209 won by a narrow margin, Andronici said that "not one of the students said to me this wasn't worth it. We demonstrated that there is a force to be reckoned with coming up through the ranks. We're not going to tolerate rollbacks against women and people of color. Young people are taking up the reins and saying, that's not going to happen on my watch."