Events Calendar

On April 29, 2012, it will be 20 years since the beginning of that tumult. And just as the media missed much of the real story then — portraying it as a black-white or black-Korean conflict, downplaying the pervasive economic distress that drove the unrest, and focusing on divisive racial politics in the immediate aftermath — reporters are likely to swoop into the city as they have on previous anniversaries, trekking to the communities hardest hit in search of continued conflict, tension and poverty.

What they will likely leave out are the everyday efforts of grassroots organizers and ordinary residents to better their lives, and the flowering of a set of vibrant, multiracial social movements that have brought the city and the region a living wage, a better transportation system, college prep in all our schools, a more welcome stance toward immigrants, and a set of community benefits agreements that have become a model for progressive America. It is that story — how we rose as a region from contradictions to coalitions, from growing apart to standing together — that is relevant for a country still reeling from the deepest economic and political crisis in modern times.

Join us on Thursday, April 26, for a look back and, more importantly, a look forward at what the lessons of social movement organizing in Los Angeles might mean for a national agenda and the emerging social movement possibilities symbolized by (but not limited to) Occupy Wall Street.