Conference Celebrates the Value of Coalitions

Someone unaware of history might have seen simply this: two elderly gentlemen chatting, one white, one black, perhaps good friends catching up on old times.

But when Peter Dreier looked across the crowd and spotted former U.S. Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins, 91, and longtime housing activist Frank Wilkinson, 84, he saw the best of an era in Los Angeles’ political history and lessons for its future.

“They represent the living embodiment of what a progressive movement has to offer,” said Dreier, professor of politics and public policy at Occidental College. “They’re both long-distance runners for social justice.”

And they have run the race through coalition building, working toward a common goal of social justice.

The value of coalition building was the theme of a conference Saturday at Occidental, “Progressive L.A., Past, Present and Future.” The conference attracted more than 450 people, representing a wide array of the city’s movements. “If you took all the movements and activists you could fill Dodger Stadium,” said Robert Gottlieb, professor of Urban Environmental Studies, who organized the conference with Dreier. “That doesn’t mean you’ve captured that as a force.”

The conference’s goal was to highlight moments in the city’s history when separate social movements have come together and brought about social change, as well as to examine how that philosophy might prove useful today, Gottlieb said.

“It’s looking at the past through the lens of the present and the future,” Gottlieb said.

The conference also commemorated the 75th anniversary of the arrest of novelist Upton Sinclair, an event that galvanized the progressive movement in Los Angeles. Sinclair was arrested in 1923 at Liberty Hill in San Pedro, while attempting to read the Bill of Rights to a group of striking longshoremen. His brother-in-law and two others were also arrested.

The incident led to the founding of the ACLU in Southern California. Sinclair was unsuccessful in his 1934 bid for governor, but his campaign benefited other candidates. That was the year Hawkins was elected to the state Assembly.

Hawkins, who co-sponsored legislation guaranteeing full employment and barring job discrimination, said his success was due to his ability to forge alliances.

“If I have learned anything from a long period of public service, it is that working together we can achieve the highest expectation we may have,” he said.

A panel entitled “Witnesses Tell Their Story” included activists who reflected on the city’s past:

Wilkinson; Bert Corona, founder of Hermandad Mexicana; Alice McGrath, who worked with the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee; Paul Schrade, former regional director of the United Auto Workers; and Maury Weiner, an advisor to former Mayor Tom Bradley.

McGrath said the black and Jewish press were instrumental in keeping the public aware of injustices in the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon Case.

The case, the basis for the play and film “Zoot Suit,” involved the mass trial of 12 Mexican Americans accused of murder in a clearly biased case.

“That was one of the central things of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, working with many groups with a dedication to social justice,” said McGrath, 81.

Weiner said the lessons of the coalition that helped Bradley win office “consisted of people who had a complete and total dedication to” expanding representation.

“The coalition that was formed around Tom couldn’t have been formed if Tom Bradley had insisted on total loyalty to every aspect of the program,” Weiner said.

That coalition demonstrated that people working for social justice must be willing to sacrifice some goals for the overall good that can be met by working with others.

The speakers spoke on stage in a packed auditorium. Environmental activists mixed with labor organizers, immigrant rights workers and those concerned with police brutality.

“I believe the progressive organizations in Los Angeles are some of the most interesting in the country,” said Bob Wing, editor of Colorline magazine.

The conference, which was sponsored by several organizations, including the ACLU and LA Weekly, also offered an examination of the present and the future. There were panels composed of grass-roots organizations and of elected officials such as Los Angeles City Council members Jackie Goldberg and Mark Ridley-Thomas and Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa.