Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins honored two exceptional African American leaders whose professional accomplishments and steadfast commitment to community service have made a lasting impact in Westchester County. The 2026 “Trailblazers: Preserving Our Legacy” Awards were held live at the Westchester County Center in the Little Theater as part of the County’s Black History Month Celebration. The annual awards ceremony spotlights individuals whose leadership and contributions have strengthened African American history, culture and progress, both locally and beyond.
Watch the Trailblazers Awards Ceremony Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qII2Fs3Lpkk
Jenkins said: “More than two decades ago, the Trailblazers Awards Ceremony was established to ensure the stories of courage, perseverance and sacrifice of Black Americans that helped shaped our community, are never forgotten. Westchester County is rich with history, and filled with influential leaders who paved the way long before us. Tonight, we proudly celebrate two individuals who are carrying that legacy forward through their service, their guidance, and their commitment to uplifting others. Congratulations to this year’s Trailblazers – you are an essential part of the vibrant mosaic that defines who we are as a County.”
Chair of the African American Advisory Board Barbara L. Edwards, Esq. said: “Here in Westchester County, the celebration of Black History Month gives us the opportunity to honor trailblazers whose leadership and service strengthened our communities. Their resilience, and vision continue to transform barriers into bridges. Their stories remind us that lasting change is created when courage meets commitment.”
The 2026 Trailblazer Honorees received awards in the areas of Civic Engagement, and the Arts. This year’s honorees are Ronald Rosado Abad, Whitney M. Young, Jr. Award for Civic Engagement, and Lorraine Hansberry (posthumously), Ruby Dee Award for the Arts.
The Whitney M. Young, Jr. Award: Ronald Rosado Abad
A dynamic speaker and thought leader with a personal mission and passion to strengthen individuals and families, moving them from poverty to self-sufficiency, Ron Abad has 30 years of executive-level leadership experience in government and nonprofit organizations, focusing on housing and community-based healthcare.
Abad is the Chief Executive Officer of Community Housing Innovations, Inc. (CHI), a nonprofit housing provider with an operating budget close to $125m with approximately 700 employees, operating homeless shelters, affordable housing, supportive housing, permanent housing, homeownership, eviction/foreclosure prevention, financial literacy and supportive services to thousands of families and individuals in Westchester, Long Island, Hudson Valley, and New York City.
Prior to his role at Community Housing Innovations, Inc., Abad served as the Senior Vice President for Acacia Network Housing, one of New York City’s largest homeless providers, serving approximately 2,250 homeless families and 2,000 single adults. Abad oversaw a broad network of homeless shelters, with a mandate to provide and support individuals and families with transitional housing and supportive services, including primary care and Behavioral Health.
Abad also served as the Chief Operating Officer of Urban Pathways, providing street outreach, safe havens, and supportive housing to homeless individuals. Abad had oversight over programs, supportive housing development, operations, facilities/property management, low-income housing tax credit compliance, HR, Information Technology, budget/contract management, and risk/crisis oversight.
From 2008 to 2015, Abad served as the Assistant Commissioner for Capacity Planning and Development for Families with Children shelters for the New York City Department of Homeless Services. In this role, Abad was responsible for Families with Children homeless shelter capacity, planning and development, shelter procurement, contracts management, and budget negotiations. Before his stint working for the City of New York, Ron was the Vice President of Operations for Housing Works.
Abad holds a Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University. He has also completed Executive Education and certificate programs at the Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation for Senior Executives, the John F. Kennedy School of Government on Performance Measurement for Effective Management of Nonprofit Organizations, and New York University’s Real Estate Institute for Real Estate Development. Abad serves on several Board of Directors, including President of the Board of Directors for Nonprofit Westchester, the Human Services Council, The Leviticus Fund (Treasurer), Pro Bono Partnership, the New Rochelle YMCA, and The William George Agency (Secretary).
Most recently, in October 2025, City & State recognized Abad in the 2025 Westchester Power 100 List and the Trailblazer in Economic Development. In September 2025, Abad was honored with the iLeadership Community Leadership Award for advancing housing equity and championing community empowerment. In May 2025, Abad was honored with the Cornerstone Award from the Leviticus Fund for nonprofit and government leadership in service to ending homelessness and its indignity. In August 2024, Abad was awarded the City & State 2024 Above and Beyond Social Services Leaders Award (recognizing the top 50 Social Services organization leaders in New York, making a lasting impact serving vulnerable New Yorkers). CHI was noted as ‘The Face of Housing’ 2024 and 2025 in 914Inc. magazine. Abad has previously been awarded the 2023 Responsible 100 by City & State Magazine and the 2023 NYNMedia Nonprofit Trailblazers Award. Abad was also listed in Crain’s New York Business Notable Hispanic Leaders 2022 and 914Inc. Magazine ‘The Face of Affordable Housing and Homeownership’ 2022.
Abad is married to Hope, an educational administrator with the New York City Board of Education. He is the proud father of four daughters and six grandchildren. Abad enjoys sports, particularly Yankees baseball and golf, working on house projects, reading biographies, and leadership development books.
Watch the Video on Ronald Rosado Abad
The Ruby Dee Award for the Arts: Lorraine Hansberry (Posthumously)
Born on May 19, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois to Nannie Louise, a teacher and ward committeewoman, and Carl Augustus Hansberry, a real-estate mogul and founder of Lake Street Bank, one of Chicago’s first Black-owned financial institutions, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was a Black playwright, author and activist. Her best-known work,A Raisin in the Sun, was inspired by her family’s legal battle against racially segregated housing laws in the Washington Park Subdivision of Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood, with civil rights attorney Earl B. Dickerson successfully arguing Hansberry v. Leebefore the U.S. Supreme Court in 1940.
In 1950, Hansberry moved from Chicago to New York City, where she worked for Paul Robeson’s progressive publication Freedom, which shared offices with the Council on African Affairs in a brownstone on West 125th Street in Harlem. She worked her way up from answering telephones to reporting on stories, and covered topics like lynchings, civil rights protests, labor rights, and postcolonial movements. She also wrote theater and book reviews and children’s stories.
In July 1952, while protesting the segregation of New York University’s basketball teams, Hansberry met Robert Nemiroff, her future husband, on the picket line. The Hansberry-Nemiroff apartment in Greenwich Village—the setting of her second and last staged play on Broadway, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window—was a second home to a rotating roster of activists, performers, and intellectuals.
Along with Burt D’Lugoff, Nemiroff wrote the 1956 hit song “Cindy, Oh Cindy,” the profits of which gave Hansberry the financial cushion to devote herself entirely to her writing. She soon wrote a play called The Crystal Stair, the title taken from a line in Langston Hughes’s poem “Mother to Son,” which she later renamedA Raisin in the Sun, paying homage to another Hughes’s poem “Harlem: A Dream Deferred.” That play debuted in 1959, making her the first Black woman to produce a play on Broadway and winning her the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award; she was the first Black playwright and the youngest American to do so.
In 1962, seeking solace from the demands of her newfound celebrity, Hansberry and Nemiroff bought a home in Croton-on-Hudson that she affectionately called Chitterling Heights. Hansberry divided her time between Greenwich Village and Croton, and as her health began to succumb to the ravages of cancer, she came to depend on the respite that Croton provided. The couple would divorce in 1962.
Despite this and the fact that Hansberry long kept her lesbian identity quiet for fear of discrimination, she and Nemiroff maintained a close partnership until her death, with Nemiroff championing her work until the very end and eventually becoming her literary executor.
Hansberry died on January 12, 1965, at the age of thirty-four from pancreatic cancer. At her funeral, which took place at Church of the Master, in New York City, Reverend Eugene Callender recited messages of love and admiration from her countless colleagues and friends, including a letter from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote, “Her creative ability and her profound grasp of the deep social issues confronting the world today will remain an inspiration to generations yet unborn.”
She is buried at Bethel Cemetery in Croton-on-Hudson. The epitaph on her tombstone is a quote from her 1964 play The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. It reads: “I care. I care about it all. It takes too much energy not to care…The why of why we are here is an intrigue for adolescents; the how is what must command the living. Which is why I have lately become an insurgent again.”
Watch the Video on Lorraine Hansberry
