The Liberty Hill Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Sarah Pillsbury, heir to the Minnesota Pillsbury baking fortune, along with Anne Mendel, Larry Janss and Win McCormack, in 1976. [1] Its motto is "Change. Not Charity." [2]
The name of the foundation derives from a famous incident on May 15, 1923 when writer Upton Sinclair spoke to approximately 3,000 striking longshoremen at Liberty Hill in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California. In a piece of street theater designed to highlight ongoing suppression of freedom of speech by the LAPD, Sinclair began his address by reading the Bill of Rights. Within moments, he was arrested. [1]
The foundation presents an annual award in the name of activist and writer Upton Sinclair to "a person of unwavering idealism and vision, whose work illustrates an abiding commitment to social justice and equality." The Upton Sinclair Award is given to "a person like Sinclair, whose lifelong crusade for equality and justice inspires us even today." In addition, Liberty Hill presents its Founders Award to individuals who embody the spirit of change, not charity, with the belief that real progress happens in communities. [3]
The foundation also funds local Los Angeles organizations dedicated to environmental justice, such as East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. [4] It has also provided funding for out-of-state organizations such as the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. [5]
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California. He wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well known and popular in the first half of the 20th century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.
Urvashi Vaid was an Indian-born American LGBT rights activist, lawyer, and writer. An expert in gender and sexuality law, she was a consultant in attaining specific goals of social justice. She held a series of roles at the National LGBTQ Task Force. She is the author of Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation (1995) and Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics (2012).
Robert Greenwald is an American filmmaker, and the founder of Brave New Films, a nonprofit film and advocacy organization whose work is distributed for free in concert with nonprofit partners and movements in order to educate and mobilize for progressive causes. With Brave New Films, Greenwald has made investigative documentaries such as Uncovered: The War on Iraq (2004), Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004), Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005), Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006), Rethink Afghanistan (2009), Koch Brothers Exposed (2012), and War on Whistleblowers (2013), Suppressed 2020: The Fight to Vote (2020), Suppressed and Sabotaged: The Fight to Vote (2022), Beyond Bars: A Son's Fight for Justice (2022) as well as many short investigative films and internet videos.
Alphonzo Edward Bell Sr. was an American oil multi-millionaire, real estate developer, philanthropist, and champion tennis player. The westside Los Angeles residential community of Bel Air is named after him, as well as the Southern California communities of Bell and Bell Gardens.
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Aurora Castillo known as "la doña — a title of respect given to her by her largely Latino community — was an American environmentalist and community activist from Los Angeles, California. She co-founded the Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA) in 1984. The MELA organization successfully opposed a planned building of a toxic waste incinerator and state prison in Eastside Los Angeles. Castillo was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1995.
Prynce Hopkins, who was born Prince Charles Hopkins, was an American Socialist, pacifist, philanthropist, and author of numerous psychology books and periodicals. He was jailed and fined for his strident anti-war views, pro-union activities, and investigated for his associations with such social reformers as Upton Sinclair and Emma Goldman.
Michael Dean Shelton is an American actor, activist, and photographer. Making his television debut in 2006 on MTV's Punk'd, he appeared in several reality TV shows, PSAs, in addition to his humanitarian work to that focused on global poverty, food insecurity, mental illness, and LGBTQ+ equality. Shelton is also a photographer who divides his time between Little Rock, Arkansas and Los Angeles, California.
Samuel Chu Muk Man is a Hong Kong-born American activist and community organizer. Chu is the founder and President of The Campaign for Hong Kong, a US-based nonpartisan organization whose mission is to advocate for American leadership and policies that advance human rights and democracy in Hong Kong. He is also a founding member of the advisory board of the Axel Springer SE Freedom Foundation in Berlin (Germany), a Senior Advisor to the President and CEO of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and a trainer for Midwest Academy, a training school for community organizers in the US.
Tim Gill is an American computer software programmer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and LGBTQ rights activist. He was among the first openly gay people to be on the Forbes 400 list of America's richest people.
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The David Bohnett Foundation is a private foundation that gives grants to organizations that focus on its core giving areas – primarily Los Angeles area programs and LGBT rights in the United States, as well as leadership initiatives and voter education, gun violence prevention, and animal language research. As of 2022, the foundation has donated $125 million to nonprofit organizations and initiatives.
The 1923 San Pedro maritime strike was, at the time, the biggest challenge to the dominance of the open shop culture of Los Angeles, California until the rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the 1930s.
Liberty Hill site in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California was the site of the 1923 strike by the Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union 510 a part of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The strike was called to draw attention to the worker's low wages and poor working conditions. It was also to draw attention to some union activists that had been arrested and lockup for violating the California Criminal Syndicalism Act passed on April 30, 1919, by Governor William Stephens, which criminalized syndicalism. The strike tied up 90 ships in Port of Los Angeles San Pedro. The Liberty Hill site was designated a California Historic Landmark on March 3, 1997.
Rick Chavez Zbur is an American attorney currently serving in the California State Assembly.
Kafi Blumenfield is a civic leader and activist in Los Angeles, the state of California, and the Virgin Islands.
Nalleli Cobo is an American activist.