Upton Sinclair Dinner 2026: Honoring 50 Years of Solidarity & Progress
Together, We Celebrated 50 Years of Solidarity & Progress
Thank you for joining us for Liberty Hill Foundation’s 50th anniversary celebration at the 2026 Upton Sinclair Dinner.
It was an extraordinary evening honoring five decades of community power, solidarity, and progress in Los Angeles — and celebrating the people, partnerships, and movements that have helped shape a more just and equitable city over the past 50 years.
This year’s Upton Sinclair Dinner honored Liberty Hill’s visionary co-founders — Sarah Pillsbury, Larry Janss, Win McCormack, and Anne Mendel — whose bold philanthropic vision helped establish Liberty Hill in 1976.
We were also proud to recognize two remarkable keynote speakers and honorees whose leadership reflects the values at the heart of Liberty Hill’s work today: Angélica Salas, Executive Director of CHIRLA, our Wally Marks Changemaker Award Honoree, and Joanna Jackson, President & CEO of the Weingart Foundation, our Upton Sinclair Award Honoree.
The evening featured remarks from Eric Garcetti and our President & CEO Shane Murphy Goldsmith, the live creation of our Vision for the Future Mural, a rousing opening set in our Past is Prologue Museum by The Shambles, and a powerful closing performance by The Freedom Singers of the Los Angeles Community Action Network.
Together, these moments reflected both the legacy of Liberty Hill’s first 50 years and the future we are still called to build.
- Date
- Tuesday, May 12, 2026
- Time
- 5 p.m. PDT
- Location
- Skirball Cultural Center
Featured Speakers
Angélica Salas, Executive Director of CHIRLA (Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights)
Angelica joined CHIRLA in 1995 and became CHIRLA’s Executive Director in 1999. In her role, she has transformed CHIRLA into a mass membership immigrant-led organization that empowers immigrants and their families to win local, state, and national policies that advance their human, civil, and labor rights. She has grown CHIRLA into one of the nation’s largest and most effective immigrant rights organizations that organize, advocates, educates, and provides legal services to all immigrants. She has spearheaded ambitious statewide and national campaigns to expand immigrant rights.
Joanna Jackson, President & CEO of Weingart Foundation
Joanna brings a voice uniquely suited to this historic moment for Liberty Hill. As President & CEO of the Weingart Foundation, she is helping shape what the next era of philanthropy looks like: one rooted in trust, community leadership, and a clear-eyed commitment to justice. At a time when Liberty Hill is honoring the visionaries who built the foundation and the leaders who carried it forward, Joanna represents the future-facing leadership that will shape what comes next. Her perspective bridges legacy and possibility, grounding us in the lessons of the past while challenging philanthropy to meet this moment with courage, clarity, and imagination.
