Grantee Spotlight

Local resident Carolina Rodriguez, who was born and raised in East L.A., became a key figure in the local battle for rent control. Despite multiple attempts by her landlord to evict her and her family after increasing their rent more than $500, Carolina remains in her home in East L.A. today due to the efforts of Unincorporated Tenants United, which Liberty Hill helped coordinate.

One of the rising stars of the Youth Justice movement, LeQuan Muhammed has emerged as a voice for his local community and a shining example of the power of positivity and the promise of youth.

This past year, the youth climate movement sprang into action in a major way. With coordinated climate protests across the globe and increased civic engagement here at home, today’s youth are leading the way toward the environmental justice victories of tomorrow.

The worlds of art, social justice, and youth activism have long worked together to drive social change within the community. Engaging youth in the arts can promote powerful change in countless ways, improving creativity and social skills, enhancing critical thinking, building confidence, and creating deep cultural and personal connections.

Mainor is a Youth Policy Advocate working to keep Brown and Black youth out of the system at The Arts for Incarcerated Youth Network (AIYN). After navigating his youth without proper guidance or mentorship, he found himself in jail as a teenager.

Liberty Hill Foundation recently announced the relaunch of its Liberty Vote! initiative, which supports nonpartisan electoral engagement efforts through grants and other electorally-focused initiatives to build power at the grassroots level in L.A. County’s most disenfranchised communities.

After sharing the stage with President Obama on MSNBC's Special Edition, Liberty Hill Youth Justice Intern, Jerron Hawkins looks back on his experience as a former White House Mentee and as a beneficiary of the My Brother's Keeper initiative.

At Morningside High, Dylan learned about “all the barriers that boys and men of color face in communities like Inglewood,” but in the Black Male Youth Academy on campus, he worked on college-prep projects and was invited to participate in the Brothers, Sons Selves Coalition, which is managed by Liberty Hill. With enthusiasm and hard work, Dylan advocated with school board members and state legislators for changes in school discipline policies that disproportionately impact young men of color and have been shown to increase dropout rates.

My name is Diana Feliz Oliva and I am a transgender, first-generation Mexican American. I was raised in a single-parent household in a small, rural town just outside Fresno, California. For a shy, feminine, awkward little kid like me, growing up in a small, rural town was not easy.

Esthefanie was born in Guadalajara and was brought to the U.S. when she was six years old. She’s now a community college student and a youth organizer at InnerCity Struggle, a community based education-focused organization that Liberty Hill has supported for many years. Esthefanie transformed her frustration and shame into a sense of pride and determination, standing up against injustices.

Liberty Hill has also helped Gabriel on a very personal level through his work with the Brother Sons Selves Coalition, a Liberty Hill led campaign. "My personal experience being trans, entering BSS was a little bit of a nervous and scary place," Gabriel explains. Up until that point in his life he had never really been welcomed into masculine or even cis male spaces. "And so to have this kind of access through my job and through the social justice work has really helped to heal."

Liberty Hill was an early funder and ally of Los Angeles Black Worker Center, helping to strengthen the year-old fledgling organization in 2010. Gerry learned of the Center—which organizes Black workers to fight back against discrimination in the workplace and improve access to quality jobs—when he was referred by a friend after complaining of racial bias at work. He first called more than two years ago and has been a member ever since. “I didn’t know that there were so many other people who shared the same story as me,” he says.

From the beginning, says Manuel, his wife supported his organizing activities. “She would tell me not to be afraid, that everything was going to work out—and yes, we were able to accomplish this.” His elementary school aged son, too, was part of the push for justice. “He was always involved in the campaign. He says when he grows up, he will also be an organizer!”

Patrisse spoke at Liberty Hill’s Uplifting Change luncheon earlier this year, bringing the voice of a new generation to donor-activists focused on strengthening Black Los Angeles through philanthropic investment in grassroots community organizing. She led the group in a moving refrain by Assata Shakur: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and support one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

It wasn't until she was 29 that Roslyn Broadnax learned she had a learning disability. She'd been a victim of "pushout," as her fellow members of CADRE call it. As a student in South Los Angeles, she'd been passed from grade to grade, eventually graduating high school without the ability even to fill out a job application.

When I started their training I couldn't stand the thought of being on a commission. We just didn't get along with the people in power so much! But now, knowing what I know, and learning what I've learned, I can't stand the thought of missing the opportunity. Because when I'm outside a door waiting for it to open, today, that door is more likely outside the Governor's offic

When Teresita left the Philippines, traffickers took her to Hawaii, where she was eager to start her new life working on the island. At first she had no idea she was a human trafficking victim. But her dream of coming to America quickly became a nightmare. The people who brought her to the US promised her citizenship, but never followed through. Soon she was starving and severely overworked, but because of her immigration status, she “was afraid to call the police.” At the same time, she knew little about US labor laws and had no access to information about her rights.

This May, Liberty Hill honors the many contributions of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AA and NHPIs) and stands in solidarity with AA and NHPI organizers demanding an end to racial violence and fighting for systemic change.