November 9th Annual Gathering

Dear Friends, 

 

 

Date and Time: Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025, from 4 – 6 PM

Location: St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 10 N. Main, Albany, NY 12203

Cost: Suggested donation is $20 (more, if possible, less, as needed) Students are free. 

           This is UHPA’s annual meeting and main fundraiser.

 

 

Mark Mishler is the recipient of the 2025 UHPA Pat Beetle Peace Award and will be on the panel.

Mark Mishler is a longtime peace activist who was born into a family of radicals and grew up during a period of profound social change and movements for peace and justice.  His family introduced him to socialism: a vision of working people holding power and creating a world based on human needs, human rights, peace, and justice rather than greed, exploitation, war, and dehumanization. Mark has practiced law since 1981 after graduating cum laude from Boston College School of Law.  He has focused on criminal defense and civil rights, and has represented activists in the anti-apartheid, labor, student, environmental, housing, anti-racist, LGBTQ+, Occupy, immigration rights, disability rights, and Poor People’s movements. Mark’s activism has included work in the anti-apartheid movement, the struggle against police racism and brutality, Palestine solidarity, Cuba solidarity, advocacy for public education, progressive electoral work, and the movement to end the threat of nuclear war. He co-founded the Albany chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Mark has held leadership roles with the Albany NAACP, the Capital District Coalition Against Apartheid & Racism, Capital Area Against Mass Incarceration, the Albany City-Wide PTA, and the Hudson Valley – Berkshire Society for U.S. -Soviet Friendship. He has taught courses on mass incarceration and the law at Albany Law School and at UAlbany. Since 2019, Mark has been Counsel and Legislative Director for socialist NYS Senator Julia Salazar, where he works on legislation and policy relating to housing, the criminal legal system, women’s rights, consumer rights, and the carceral system, and collaborates with activist groups in planning legislative strategies.

 

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Clyanna Lightbourn is a community organizer, doula, herbalist, and avid gardener, embracing the lessons of patience and persistence that come with tending the earth. She holds a Master’s in Forensic Mental Health, a lens she uses to analyze how systems of incarceration and injustice affect people’s daily lives and to advocate for community-based alternatives. She currently serves as Campaign Director at the League of Women Voters of New York State, where she leads the Democracy During Detention campaign, an effort to codify voting rights for people in jail. With a background in Black feminist organizing, reproductive justice, and community care, Clyanna bridges the practical and the political—reminding us that liberation work is rooted not only in laws and policies but also in how we nurture one another and the land we live on.

 

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John Cutro, NYSDA RJP Restorative Practitioner, conducts restorative practice trainings as well as case-specific processes. He is an IIRP certified trainer and has presented at many national and international conferences in Canada and the United Kingdom. Using restorative, relational and trauma-focused practices, he has helped interrupt and transform life-threatening violence and trained communities and schools, including, the Albany and Ulster County District Attorney Offices, Albany and Ulster County Probation, the Ulster County Human Rights Commission, Schenectady Center for Community Justice and Community Accountability Boards of NYS University at Albany and in Newburg, NY. Previously, he was a homicide investigator, mitigation specialist, and victim liaison with the NYS Capital Defender Office, and used restorative practices in death penalty cases. He graduated from SUNY Albany with a B.S. in Physics and attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. A Sage College adjunct criminal justice teacher, he also taught biostatistics and scientific research methods on the faculty of Albany Medical College. He has been a NYS licensed criminal investigator for two decades.

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