Youth Leaders Kick off Productive BSS Year with Emotional Retreat

By Karen Driscoll – BSS Program Manager

The Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition, one of Liberty Hill’s Common Agenda Campaigns, held its annual retreat last month where 33 youth leaders along with myself and other staff from partner organizations convened in Malibu to plan priorities for 2015-2016. Together we worked with the young people in the Coalition to increase their understanding of BSS history and to create a safe space where they could bond with one another. The entire weekend was a complete success because of the hard work of Coalition partners and our consultant team, but there were definitely some highlights from the young men worth noting.

During the camp fire on the first night of the retreat, Marc Arenas, from InnerCity Struggle, shared what it meant for him to be a BSS youth leader. In that role Marc started last year he was rather shy, but being in the Coalition however, has allowed him to come out of his shell. He also shared how the BSS Coalition inspires him to do more and has allowed him to be in a place where he has the chance to meet people he’s not exposed to in his neighborhood. Marc revealed that this year he is excited to be a high school senior so that he could take more of a leadership role in the Coalition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One priority area for BSS is the development of a School Climate Measurement Tool. The tool will seek to comprehensively assess school climate on campus beyond suspension and expulsion rates. It will measure the quality of teacher student relationships, teaching practices in the classroom and the presence of police on campus.

During our session on the School Climate Measurement, youth leaders expressed their desire to see their teachers connect with them in culturally competent ways. This means that the young men want their teachers more aware of what goes on in a student’s life and community and how that shapes their interaction in the classroom. Jonathan, from Khmer Girls in Action, said that he doesn’t have mental health counselors on campus (only academic) so he wants the measurement tool to highlight this issue. The measurement tool we’re developing will help capture this critical perspective.

In learning about the organizations involved in the Coalition, Johnny, from GSA Network, shared that he had been kicked out of his home when his family assumed he was gay. He shared that he’s since found a home at GSA and can see that BSS will be just as welcoming.

The Retreat concluded with a talent show where youth leaders expressed themselves through creative measures like freestyle rap and singing. It was amazing to see the talent that filled the room.

Overall, the retreat (and BSS in general) is a place where our young people can be themselves completely. They are supported by adults who help them understand and use their leadership skills to change their schools and communities in a positive way.

This year the Brother, Son, Selves Coalition will be focused on getting the school climate measurement tool implemented in LA County school districts as well as advancing statewide and local policy that promotes school climate, reduces the criminalization of communities of color, and most importantly, inspires hope among young boys and men of color.

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Liberty Hill Welcomes new Chief Program Officer

 Liberty Hill is pleased to announce that Jennifer Epps-Addison has joined us as Chief Program Officer.  Jennifer was most recently Executive Director of Wisconsin Jobs Now, the largest base-building 501c3 organization in Wisconsin. In that role, she has been active in regional worker-led campaigns that scored wins for sick days and a living wage ordinance.  She was also involved with the national coalition to raise minimum wage rates that helped support Liberty Hill grantees in their successful campaigns in L.A. City and County.

Jennifer has 15 years of grassroots community organizing experience in economic, racial, and criminal justice issues. She has had leadership positions at the Good Jobs and Livable Neighborhood Coalition and Citizen Action of Wisconsin.  Jennifer has also worked as an attorney for the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office.  She holds a B.A. in Political Science and Women’s Studies from the University of Wisconsin- Madison & a law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School. 

Welcome, Jennifer!

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Frontlines to Headlines September

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CHANGE

Our post-Labor Day round-up catches us up on media attention from August and early September. Policy-change wins in oil drilling regulation and the Los Angeles County minimum wage increase (following the City of L.A. in June) along with passage of the state wage theft legislation (now on Governor Brown’s desk) top the list.

New regulations from the South Coast Air Quality Management District require oil companies drilling in urban areas to cut back on noxious odors and give residents an easier way to complain. Liberty Hill-funded coalition Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling (STAND) is at the forefront of the resident movement, and in a report on the change, the Los Angeles Times quoted Bahram Fazeli of coalition member Communities for a Better Environment.

The L.A. Times turned to Liberty Hill for background and data on another story about South L.A. residents battling oil companies over residential pollution. Aljazeera also covered a protest organized by STAND.

Alexandra Suh of Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA), a key anchor group in the fight for passage of statewide wage theft enforcement bill AB 588, spoke to Southern California Public Radio as the bill passed both houses of the California State Legislature and headed to Governor Brown’s desk. (The Times chatted earlier with Alexandra in their “chat and a selfie” column.)

Passage and implementation of wage theft enforcement is a goal of a Liberty Hill partnership fund, the Fund for Equity and Economic Dignity (FEED), whose grantees include the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, mentioned in this L.A. Times story of the injustices workers experience through wage theft.

The County minimum wage increase spurred more coverage. A Wall Street Journal article about how the minimum wage increase will impact L.A.’s garment industry quoted Marissa Nuncio, director of the Garment Worker Center, who stressed the importance of curbing wage theft.

A Huffington Post piece mentions the work L.A. VOICE and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) have done to mobilize workers. In The Times also covered the County wage increase with a piece by ACCE member, Martha Sanchez.

Recent Liberty Hill Commission Training Focused on Targeted Hire Practices

By Shyann Murphy

Shyann is a Liberty Hill intern in her junior year at USC, where she is focusing on political science and women’s studies. Shyann is a fearless advocate for LGBTQ and women’s  issues on campus, doing a lot of much needed community engagement and organizing work on campus. 

On June 11, Liberty Hill Foundation’s Wally Marks Leadership Institute for Change Commissions Training Program hosted a panel and discussion on “Targeted Hire in Public Projects: Community Stabilization Through Local Jobs.” Targeted Hire is a policy designed to support people from undeserved communities by providing them with job opportunities in public works projects. Liberty Hill’s Commissions Training Program trains grassroots leaders to become advocates within government structures, such as commissions. The Program ensures that Los Angeles has strong leadership that makes equitable decisions for all communities.

The panel members explored “Targeted Hire” as a policy and provided suggestions for how people within decision-making structures like commissions can advocate for Targeted Hire programs to empower undeserved communities. The panelists emphasized the ways in which “Targeted Hire” programs could build power from within communities, while also creating a more stable and balanced economy.

Building a House of Power: The road to a Black Workers Center in Ferguson

By Crystal Shaw

For years, Los Angeles Black Worker Center, a Liberty Hill grantee, has been a national leader in the urgent work of reversing the Black Jobs Crisis. As a result, its staff and advisers, including the Center’s Director, Lola Smallwood Cuevas, were aware of the obstacles for Black workers not only in L.A. but also in communities such as Ferguson, Missouri. In fact, because of the success the LABWC has been having, advocates from the St. Louis suburb—whose population is nearly 70% Black—sought them out for advice and consultation, to begin talks of opening a black workers center there.

After Michael Brown, an unarmed Ferguson teenager, lost his life at the hands of a police officer and a grand jury decided not to indict the officer,  the  U.S. Department of Justice found the Ferguson Police Department had engaged in “a pattern or practice of unlawful conduct” through discrimination and racial stereotyping.  The underserved African American community was not only fighting for economic development but also against an unfair criminal justice system and decades of unfair practices by the hands of its governing systems , the very systems supposedly set up to serve them.  While this little known travesty may have been only revealed after Ferguson had been thrust onto the country’s zeitgeist, the Los Angeles Black Workers Center has recognized of the unbalanced and unorganized hiring practices that resulted in high levels of poverty plaguing Ferguson, and the need for an organized system to be set in place before economic justice could advance.

The creation of a Ferguson Black Worker Center is only possible through a true partnership between Black organizations and unions.  It’s   being anchored by The Organization for Black Struggle (OBS) and the Coalition of Black Trade Unions (CBTU) who have partnered with the national trade union, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), explains Lola. The AFL-CIO is helping to grow workers centers across the country by supporting groups who are doing that work.   A lot of the foundational efforts are modeled on the Los Angeles BWC, and conversations were well underway before the November 2014 uprising in Ferguson after the jury verdict.  After those turbulent events, naturally a lot of focus was set on St. Louis and resources began to come in so the table has gotten bigger.

Lola Smallwood Cuevas, Director, Los Angeles Black Workers Center

“What was clear,” says Lola, is that unions and Black-led community-based organizations have not had conversations.”  She says a lot of trust had to be built.  “Obviously the conditions of over 50% of Black men in that community unemployed and the assault on Black people by the government, the balancing of the government’s budget on the pain and suffering of Black folks largely has gone unnoticed by the labor movement, by other liberal and progressive forces in St. Louis for a really long time.”

So, Lola says, all parties involved had to decide if it was even possible to have a table in which unions and the Black community could come together and actually create an institution whose mission would be to build power for Black people in the t. Louis area.  “When we went to Ferguson after the Mike Brown killing we saw the level of potential for power building: all the mobilization, all of the moves to do leadership development, build capacity, to really make this moment a movement happening. We heard people in the conversation realizing that at the core of it is poverty.”

If opening a worker’s center was to be a reality, the allies gathered knew they had to address key issues: poverty, the Black Jobs Crisis, and how to make this worker’s center and partnership operational.

During another visit In December 2014 the first thing L.A. Black Worker Center facilitated was a two-day workshop in Ferguson, and a strategic planning session with the building trade union Service Employees International Union (SEIU) along with the Coalition of Black Trade Unions and the Organization for Black Struggle.  Participants laid out a six month plan to move the center forward.  First the partners would need to find resources to have a coordinator in Ferguson that could continue the grassroots conversations on strategic planning, taking into consideration what would be the links among the organizing groups, as well as strategies for identifying the jobs, processes for placement and potential mini campaigns to start.  After much work in those strategic meetings, Lola says, a feeling of hope, and a real belief that this could happen is evident and message was born.

“Build a House of Power: Economic justice in the Back community and partnership with the unions.  That was the message coming out,” Lola explains.

Since that December visit there’s been great progress.  A location for the Ferguson Black Worker Center has been secured, the workforce development program planning is moving forward and the unions have already started doing trainings.  Political education sessions are also underway.

After doing the ground work, Lola says, everyone involved believes the Worker Center will be established and will flourish. The partners recognized, she says, it “that this was a very white led, conservative, anti-worker and anti-Black environment. What was needed was the building of a different type of power structure—power for working class folks and for Black folks in particular.  And again the framework was “Building a House of Power!” By next December the hope is that the Ferguson Black Worker Center will be well enough established to focus on the Black Jobs Crisis through partnerships with unions while at the same time offering economic and racial justice focused activities, campaigns and worker leadership training.  Immediate plans are underway for a leadership institute that will bring all stakeholders together for more planning of what the initial campaign will be.

“But again,” Lola says, “it’s a process to end up with something that’s going to be sustainable and have impact.  We want to take our time and make sure that the right partners are at the table and committed.”

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Frontlines to Headlines June/July 2015

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POLICING & CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liberty Hill’s Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition scored a major victory as Los Angeles Unified School District responded to youth organizing efforts and agreed to allocate Local Control Funding Formula dollars to services for students in need rather than school police. Education Week covered the story, also mentioning Youth Justice Coalition (YJC), and Witness L.A. mentioned Community Coalition in its report.

When Sheriffs in the Antelope Valley targeted Section 8 renters, especially African Americans and Latinos, with harassment and intimidation, The Community Action League (TCAL) organized community members against discrimination. After a long campaign that involved a federal lawsuit against the Cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, the Los Angeles Times is reporting that conditions in the region for Section 8 renters have improved dramatically.

Southern California Grantmakers hosted a briefing on Proposition 47 to discuss philanthropy’s role in implementing the new law. Liberty Hill CEO, Shane Goldsmith, spoke at the event. Check Southern California Grantmakers’s website for more.

All of Us or None is among the groups pushing for a federal ban on job applications that include questions about criminal history. The Houston Forward Times and the District Chronicles turned to All of Us or None founder, Dorsey Nunn, for quotes on the “Ban the Box” campaign.
ECONOMIC JUSTICE

 

 

 

 

 

 

KPCC hosted a panel on L.A.’s minimum wage hike that featured Kathy Hoang of the Restaurant Opportunities Center Los Angeles (ROC-LA). An Al Jazeera article on wage theft in Los Angeles also mentioned ROC-LA and cited research by the group.

NBC News reported on tenants of a La Crescenta apartment complex who are facing drastic rent increases. The report quotes Larry Gross of Coalition for Economic Survival (CES) on the importance of rent control. CES also appeared in an article about how Los Angeles City Council is considering boosting housing stock by legalizing unpermitted rental units. Larry Gross offered a favorable opinion of the plan to KPCC.

Long Beach City Council approved measures that will strengthen the City’s Rental Housing Inspection Program, giving added protections to tenants. The Long Beach Post and Long Beach Press Telegram both mentioned Housing Long Beach (HLB) in their coverage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Intersections South L.A. published a story on the relationship between health and housing conditions in South Los Angeles. The article quotes Nery Cividanis of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE).

A KPCC report on who will foot the bill for extensive earthquake retrofitting in Los Angeles quoted Steve Diaz of Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN) who spoke out against placing the burden on renters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Los Angeles Metro is attempting to speed up bus boarding by allowing passengers to enter at all doors. The Bus Riders Union expressed support for the plan, which is currently undergoing testing. KPCC has the story.
IMMIGRATION

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the heels of Donald Trump’s disparaging remarks about immigrants, the presidential hopeful journeyed to L.A. for a meeting with Hollywood conservatives. The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA) organized a demonstration outside the event, and several news outlets covered the story including ABC, NBC and L.A. Weekly.

Los Angeles City Council voted to implement new regulations against street vendors operating at public parks and beaches that include fines and possible misdemeanor charges. The Los Angeles Times covered the story and quoted Joseph Villela of CHIRLA, and a Reuters story on the issue quoted Becky Dennison of LA CAN. Both activists criticized the plan.
GENDER JUSTICE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teni Adewumi of Black Women for Wellness (BWW) travelled to Pittsburgh to speak at Kinks, Locks & Twists, a conference on women’s health issues. The New Pittsburgh Courier has the story.
ENVIRONMENT

 

 

 

 

 

A Health Affairs Blog article on philanthropists targeting climate change gave a nod to Liberty Hill’s Clean Up Green Up campaign.

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Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition Advocacy Scores Major Victory

By Crystal Shaw

Jerry (GSA), Malik (SJLI), and Michael (Strategy Center) presented BSS Coalition LCFF priorities around school climate to Board Member McKenna.

The Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition—Liberty Hill Foundation’s Common Agenda initiative focusing on young men and boys of color and created in strategic partnership with The California Endowment—had very specific goals for the new campaign at the start of the 2014-15 school year.   The members were determined to get more funding for Restorative Justice practices on school campuses and to advocate that no supplemental or concentration of Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) dollars be spent on school police.  They didn’t want the local funds to continue to contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline.

Yesterday was a huge win for the coalition.  The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) met those demands with a vote ratifying the 2015-16 budget. The school police budget is no longer supported by LCFF dollars and the District has increased investment in Restorative Justice to $7.2 million from $4.2 million (up $3 million). These victories are particularly important because LCFF dollars are intended to support low income, foster and English-learning youth and this budget better reflects the resources needed for L.A.’s highest needs students.

Power to the People: These Grassroots Orgs Received Liberty Hill’s Rapid Response Fund Grants

By 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.

Building Power for Grassroots Organizing through LA County Commissions

By 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.

Commissions? Does the word bring to mind a picture of a line of authority-figure types sitting like judges through some boring meeting? What could commissions have to do with Liberty Hill’s focus on supporting leaders in the movement for social justice?

Just this: Power.

If you’ve ever wanted to do something to effect positive change, becoming an advocate-commissioner on one of L.A. County’s almost 200 commissions or boards is one of the most strategic ways available to get your voice heard and bring grassroots community perspective to the table on important issues. The whole point of these commissions is to get the public involved in County-related issues and to advise and make recommendations to the Board of Supervisors.

Liberty Hill President and CEO Shane Goldsmith

 

Liberty Hill President and CEO Shane Goldmith, who also sits on the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, opened the program by pointing out that “Liberty Hill exists to build power for people who are left out of the power structure every single day.  And we do that by making sure that government is accountable to everyday Angelenos, especially people who are excluded from the decisions that affect low income people, people of color, LGBTQ people, women.”

A Soundtrack for Social Justice, as Heard at Liberty Hill’s Upton Sinclair Dinner

At the 33^rd 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.