2026 Upton Sinclair Dinner: A Milestone Celebration for the Ages!
We are deeply grateful to everyone who joined us for Liberty Hill Foundation’s 50th anniversary celebration at the 2026 Upton Sinclair Dinner this month.
It was an extraordinary evening honoring five decades of community power, solidarity, and progress in Los Angeles. Together, we celebrated 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 paid tribute to 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 and laid the foundation for this work.
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 the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA), our Wally Marks Changemaker Award Honoree, and Joanna Jackson, President & CEO of the Weingart Foundation, our Upton Sinclair Award Honoree.
The evening feature remarks from Eric Garcetti and Liberty Hill President & CEO Shane Murphy Goldsmith, alongside powerful moments of art and storytelling including 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.
In her remarks that night, Shane shared, “Fifty years from now, what Los Angeles do you want to see? And what will you do today to plant the seeds of that future?” She continued, “It will be here before we know it. Let’s grow something magnificent.”
Thank you to the entire Liberty Hill community for being part of this milestone moment and for helping us plant the seeds for the next 50 years of change.
