A few days ago I had breakfast with a man who had been one of my mentors in college, who participated in the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s and has devoted much of the rest of his life in pursuit of equal opportunity for minorities, the poor, women, gays, immigrants — and also for average hard-working people who have been beaten down by the economy. Now in his mid-80s, he’s still active.
I asked him if he thought America would ever achieve true equality of opportunity.
“Not without a fight,” he said. “Those who have wealth and power and privilege don’t want equal opportunity. It’s too threatening to them. They’ll pretend equal opportunity already exists, and that anyone who doesn’t make it in America must be lazy or stupid or otherwise undeserving.”
“You’ve been fighting for social justice for over half a century. Are you discouraged?”
“Not at all!” he said.
Fruitvale Station will not make many people’s lists as the feelgood film of the summer – it’s a semi-fictional account of the last day in the life of Oscar Grant, the troubled young black man who was mortally wounded by a transit police officer on an Oakland BART platform in 2009. Director Ryan Coogler’s debut movie opens with actual grainy cell phone footage, taken by bystanders, of the chaotic moments leading to Grant’s shooting after a melee had erupted on a train full of New Year’s Eve revelers.
Yet the story remains a powerfully optimistic work that shows Grant (Michael B. Jordan), in his last day alive, coming to terms with his criminal past as a small-time drug dealer. We watch as he tries to move his life in a new direction and become a better husband and father. And, despite Grant’s recurring moments of explosive personal confrontations, Coogler’s film knows when to pull back and take a restrained,
President Obama recently signed a bipartisan bill that ties student loan interest rates to the financial markets, which allows this year’s undergraduates to borrow at 3.9 percent interest — nearly half of what they would have paid if Congress had failed to act. As a recent college graduate, I, like many of my peers, was very excited to learn of this decision. However, while the federal government has done great work to help those students who are already enrolled in college, it is effectively failing those students who come from families at or below the poverty line.
A recent Brookings Institute and Princeton University study notes that the federal government is spending around $1 billion per year on programs to help low-income students. Despite this funding, the four major college prep programs, Upward Bound, Upward Bound Math-Science, Student Support Services and Talent Search (known collectively as TRIO), have had “no major effects on college enrollment or completion.” The study shows that students from low-income backgrounds who earn college degrees are 80 percent less likely to be poor.
» Read more about: Paper Chases: College and Low-Income Students »
Fifty years ago, just a year out of high school, I sat in my parents’ small living room engrossed by images on the flickering black and white TV screen. Something called the March on Washington was running live — the whole event, as I recall, which network television did in those days. I’m not sure why I was not at work or why I was alone in the house, but I remember that tears came to my eyes, just as they do now as I think back on that day.
My parents were originally from the South, but both grew up in Southern California. My mother had been born in Mississippi, moved to Texas and then Inglewood. My father came from Texas to La Crescenta. After they married and my father became a minister, Northern California was home, but the ethos of white superiority and other ethnic and class inferiorities were engrained.
This week we mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Few would argue about the importance of Dr. King in U.S. history and the decisive role he played in the civil rights movement. Soon after his death, a campaign began to have King’s birthday declared a national holiday. Over six million signatures were collected on a petition to Congress to pass such a law, in what has been called “the largest petition in favor of an issue in U.S. history.”
Martin Luther King Jr. Day became a federal holiday in 1986.
Fourteen years later, MLK Day was observed in all 50 U.S. states for the first time.
And in 2006, Greenville County, South Carolina became the last county in the U.S. to officially make MLK Day a paid holiday.
Growing numbers of private employers also consider MLK Day a holiday.
» Read more about: L.A.’s Fox TV Strips MLK Day from Union Contract »
Union leaders and activists from around the country, in Los Angeles September 8 for the AFL-CIO Convention, will get a close look at a regional labor movement with membership numbers holding steady or even slightly increasing.
Compare this with much of the U.S., where the percentage of workers represented by unions is dropping rapidly and persistently.
L.A., more than most cities (and California, more than most states) has stayed a step ahead of an employer class determined to cleanse the global economy of collective worker power.
Credit Los Angeles and statewide unions for building tightly run coalitions with immigrant-rights and economic-justice groups; their brassy leadership and an electoral strategy which has – so far, at least – beaten back anti-union measures like Proposition 32.
AFL-CIO delegates from the de-industrialized Midwest, by contrast, have been facing relentless attacks from Republican governors and legislatures fronting right-to-work drives and laws restricting public employee bargaining rights.
» Read more about: AFL-CIO Convention Comes to Los Angeles »
Last Saturday’s commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington spotlighted the power of grassroots activism. But it was no exercise in nostalgia. Activists are pushing for social change across the nation, and I discuss dozens of these campaigns in my new book, The Activist’s Handbook, Second Edition: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, officially released today by UC Press. The book thoroughly revises and updates the 1996 edition, which the late Howard Zinn praised as “enormously valuable for anyone interested in social change.” The new edition adds my analysis of the strategies used by social movements around immigration reform, gay and lesbian rights, the Keystone XL Pipeline, school “reform” and other campaigns that really took off in the past decade.
While some believe the past 15 years have weakened the power of grassroots activism against big moneyed interests, I disagree. In fact, in writing the new book I realized that activism has increased since the original edition,
Tonight, port truck drivers employed by Green Fleet Systems, which contracts with companies like Skechers and Huffy bikes to haul cargo containers on and off the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, began a 24-hour Unfair Labor Practice strike. The strike started at 5 p.m., the beginning of the night shift, and will continue through Tuesday when the day shift arrives. As a Green Fleet day shift driver, I will be joining the night shift picket line and then will be on strike myself starting at 5 a.m. Tuesday. We are striking to protest harassment and intimidation by Green Fleet management.
I have been a port truck driver for 13 years. I have been driving for Green Fleet Systems (GFS), based in Carson, for the last three years. During my time as a port truck driver, I have seen how the port trucking industry works. Port drivers like me are often kept at low wages with few benefits,
The topic of last Thursday’s roundtable discussion hosted by the West Los Angeles Democratic Club was “The Privatization of Public Schools.” About 80 Democratic activists and Los Angeles Unified School District teachers at Mar Vista’s St. Bede’s Episcopal Church heard teacher and former congressional candidate Marcy Winograd moderate a discussion of such hot-button issues as charter schools, co-locations, Parent Trigger and federal learning-standards-based programs such as No Child Left Behind.
Panelists included LAUSD Board member Steve Zimmer, United Teachers L.A./National Education Association Vice President M.J. Roberts, Crossroads School for the Arts & Sciences founder and charter school advocate Paul Cummins, middle school teacher Loren Scott, former middle school principal Marcia Haskin and LAUSD parent and education blogger Sara Roos.
The evening’s harshest words were reserved for LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy and Parent Trigger, the controversial law that allows 50 percent-plus-one of parents from an under-performing school to fire the staff and start over.
» Read more about: School Privatization Critics Slam Parent Trigger Law »
In 1999 the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a Living Wage Ordinance applicable to private businesses that contract with the county to provide certain services, including landscaping, janitorial and security. The reason for the ordinance was simple: The state’s minimum wage at the time — $5.75 per hour—was insufficient and the failure of some county contractors to pay their workers living wages was placing financial burdens on L.A. County by causing these employees to use social and health services provided by the county.
The board set the living wage initially at $9.46 per hour without health benefits, or at $8.32 per hour if an employer offered health benefits worth at least $1.14 per hour. Since then, the living wage has been raised only once, in 2006, when the board approved an increase to the current level of $11.84 per hour without health benefits, or $9.64 with health benefits valued at $2.20 per hour.
» Read more about: Rally to Raise L.A. County’s Living Wage »