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Renewing Our Vows to Fight for Equality
Jun 26 2015
Continue ReadingMayor Garcetti made Shane and her wife Monica the first gay couple to get married in the city of Los Angeles.
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Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition Advocacy Scores Major Victory
Jun 24 2015
Continue ReadingBy Crystal Shaw
Jerry (GSA), Malik (SJLI), and Michael (Strategy Center) presented BSS Coalition LCFF priorities around school climate to Board Member McKenna.
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Want to be a Trans Ally? Watch This
Jun 17 2015
Continue ReadingBy Crystal Shaw, Contributing Editor
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Frontlines to Headlines May/June 2015
Jun 15 2015
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ECONOMIC JUSTICE
L.A.’s minimum wage increase to $15 per hour by 2020 was big news this past month, thanks in part to the hard work of several Liberty Hill organizing partners. See Refinery 29 for an article that cites figures gathered by the Garment Worker Center (GWC) and Restaurant Opportunities Center-LA (ROC-LA). The Los Angeles Daily News quoted Giselle Mata of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) calling for an earlier implementation date for the wage hike. ACCE members were also quoted in an article about how the new law will apply to workers who spend only part of their day within City limits. Read it in the L.A. Times.KPCC reported on a related story. SB 588, a bill recently passed by the California State Senate, aims to strengthen protections against wage theft and help workers collect wages they are owed. The article quotes Alexandra Suh of the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA) on how difficult it is for victims of wage theft to reclaim their stolen earnings.
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Pomona Workers Lobby Successfully for Passage of Senate Wage Theft Bill
Jun 03 2015
Continue ReadingBy Crystal Shaw, Contributing Editor
UPDATE, JUNE 9, 2015: “I’m here to demand that the employer who hired us pay us. I already worked and completed the job but the employer took all the money including my pay. The employer did not consider the fact that I have rent, bills to pay or have a family to sustain. This abuse has to stop.”
Those were the courageous words spoken by Tomas C. Gonzalez, a day laborer and member of the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center, a Liberty Hill grantee, during a day of lobbying to successfully pass the Wage Theft Prevention Act, SB588. It was Tomas’ hard work along with many others that got the bill cleared through the California Senate and will now provide stronger mechanisms for enforcement of wage theft claims. SB588 now moves to State Assembly.
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Power to the People: These Grassroots Orgs Received Liberty Hill’s Rapid Response Fund Grants
May 22 2015
Continue ReadingBy Joe Rihn
From Ferguson to New York, Baltimore and Los Angeles, police violence is claiming the lives of unarmed Black men at an alarming rate. As communities cry out for justice, mass movements like #BlackLivesMatter, are forming and the fight for racial equality is gaining momentum. Though impossible to predict, it is times like these when community organizers on the frontlines of change need resources the most. That’s why Liberty Hill Foundation established the Rapid Response Fund for Racial Justice.
Twelve organizations from Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and the Central Valley were chosen to receive year-long grants of up to $10,000 to support the urgent work of pushing back against the criminalization of communities of color, fighting to reform the criminal justice system, and uplifting Black lives. Liberty Hill’s role included administering the Southern California funding pool, and the fund also received support from The California Endowment, The California Wellness Foundation, the Rosenberg Foundation, and the Sierra Health Foundation. Liberty Hill began receiving contributions during its annual Uplifting Change event, which supports African American philanthropy in L.A. The fund has since brought in $150,000 from foundations and $20,000 from individual donors.
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Building Power for Grassroots Organizing through LA County Commissions
May 16 2015
Continue ReadingBy Crystal Shaw
Laurie Jones Neighbors
On a sunny April morning, I joined more than 62 grassroots leaders, organizers and influencers from across L.A.’s diverse communities on the beautiful grounds of the LA84 Foundation in the Historic Adams District. We were there for Liberty Hill’s Wally Marks Leadership Institute For Change training on L.A. County commissions. I attended the training session with a level of excitement to learn about an aspect of government I only had limited knowledge of. I had no idea I would gain information that could impact my own community.
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Frontlines to Headlines Spring 2015
May 11 2015
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CHANGE
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Relive These Incredible Upton Sinclair Award 2015 Moments
Apr 28 2015
Continue ReadingThe 33rd Upton Sinclair Dinner was one for the books. Honorees and program participants alike delivered poignant speeches that were both motivational and moving.
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A Soundtrack for Social Justice, as Heard at Liberty Hill’s Upton Sinclair Dinner
Apr 24 2015
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At the 33rd annual Upton Sinclair Dinner, Liberty Hill Foundation celebrated the new generation taking up the struggle for social justice. As young leaders backed by Liberty Hill are pushing for restorative justice in schools, fighting for a cleaner environment and stopping families from being split apart by deportation, musicians from all genres are proving that protest music is alive and well. Here you will find the Upton Sinclair Dinner soundtrack, which includes social justice songs from local artists, national chart-toppers and everyone in between.
While some of these songs reference political music from the ’60s and ’70s, others are rooted firmly in the sounds of today. There are topical responses to injustices in Ferguson, Los Angeles and elsewhere, as well as songs that meditate on the broader concepts of solidarity and movement building. In Oscar winner John Legend’s case, the fight for justice goes beyond music. The singer campaigned to pass Proposition 47 in California, and recently launched a new campaign called “Free America,” which will target mass incarceration nationwide.
