They named a street junction for an L.A. leader ‘on fire for justice’

The city of Los Angeles renamed the renowned intersection of Sunset and Santa Monica boulevards in Silver Lake this week in honor of one of the city’s most venerable politicians, Jackie Goldberg. But I missed the dedication ceremony.

Still, I figured that even the proud lefty and state, city and school district lawmaker would understand, considering my conflicting assignment that day.

At the same hour that the city renamed a corner on Sunset Boulevard “Jackie Goldberg Sunset Junction,” I stood three miles west, outside the Los Angeles County Hall of Administration, listening to working people demand an increase in the county’s minimum wage.

That’s the kind of fight Jackie has yearned for since her days in the 1960s as a student rabble-rouser during UC Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement. She’s been battling for better wages and working conditions for more than half a century. She’s spoken out fiercely for all those citizens, and noncitizens, without access to power.

Even conservatives who disagreed with her — saying her ideas were too pro-government and unfriendly to business — marveled at her ferocity and tenaciousness. She did it on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education (two separate terms, starting in 1983 and again in 2019) , the Los Angeles City Council (from 1993 to 2000) and the California State Assembly for six years after that. Retired now and 81 years old, as of this week, Goldberg remains what the scholar Cornel West calls “on fire for justice.”

I’m sure if I had asked Goldberg whether I should join her at the dedication of Goldberg Junction in Silver Lake, she would have urged me, instead, to attend the launch of a campaign for a $30-an-hour wage. “Go write about the people who need help,” I’m guessing she would have said. “I’ll be just fine.”

Still, I love history and I won’t soon forget the Jackie Goldberg who arrived at L.A. City Hall in the early 1990s, when I was a young reporter. Though people already knew her work from her first stint on the LAUSD board, her arrival at the City Council created a sensation.

I wrote about how — with her seat on the council “horseshoe” barely warm — she mounted a brilliant rhetorical and parliamentary counterattack when one of her conservative colleagues, Hal Bernson of the San Fernando Valley, tried to get the council to endorse a breakup of the gigantic school district.

Goldberg came to that fight with something Bernson lacked — first-hand classroom experience. She got it from her years as a teacher in Compton and other places and from her stint on the school board. As I reported 30 years ago: Jackie, “wove a tale of her teaching experiences and the uncredited successes of many Los Angeles schools — an infusion of images so immediate and so personal that the banal, bureaucratic air was blasted aside.”

She turned aside Bernson’s district breakup gambit, seeing it as an attempt to separate rich from poor and to suck resources away from the neediest schools. Beyond the school breakup battle, she won health benefits for live-in partners of city employees, both gay and straight; passed a proposal to help police crack down on black-market gun sales and got the city to launch a constitutional challenge of Proposition 187, the measure to cut government services to immigrants without legal status in the U.S. Even Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican, told me Goldberg “could be an excellent mayor.”

Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez, who now runs Goldberg’s old district in Hollywood and neighboring communities, arranged for the Sunset Junction renaming. The location has been a hub of the LGBTQ community for decades, fitting for Goldberg, a politician elected as the first openly gay member of the council and a champion of equal rights not limited by sexual orientation.

In her prepared remarks not far from a Jiffy Lube and hipster Intelligentsia coffee (also attended by former county Supervisor Sheila Kuehl and state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo), Goldberg noted the history of LGBTQ hubs like Circus Books and the Black Cat Tavern.

“Even in these times when it feels like the clock is being turned back, and rights are being taken away, it’s so important to recognize the sacrifices people made to make things better,” Goldberg said in her prepared remarks. “So many of those people are no longer with us, but we can, and must, carry on their work.”

Today’s top stories

Dana Williamson, a former top aide to Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, leaves the courthouse Nov. 12 in Sacramento.

(Sophie Austin / Associated Press)

Corruption investigation in Gov. Newsom’s circle

• The FBI has alerted dozens of Sacramento insiders, including current and former members of Newsom’s administration, that their private communications had been intercepted as part of the federal probe tied to Dana Williamson and two other longtime Democratic operatives.
• The alerts, which came via letters from the FBI, have sent a panic across California’s political power structure.
• Williamson, who was arrested Nov. 12 under charges of bank and tax fraud, was formerly Newsom’s chief of staff before being placed on leave in November 2024.

The Arizona town that’s become an unexpected magnet for Californians

• Lake Havasu City, Ariz., has increasingly attracted Californians, starting with the COVID-19 pandemic but fueled primarily by lower taxes and housing costs.
• Arizona had the highest rate of Californian arrivals per person leaving in 2023.

New storm to hit SoCal

• When will the Southern California storms end?
• After a brief respite from the rainy weather, another storm is set to hit SoCal today.
• The storm may continue through Friday, but then is expected to clear up heading into the weekend.

Autistic kids are at a higher risk of suicide

• Autistic youth face significantly higher rates of depression, suicidal thoughts and suicide than non-autistic peers. Why don’t their parents and doctors know?
• And more on what parents need to know.

What else is going on

• Tom Steyer, Democratic activist and billionaire hedge fund founder, is running for governor.
• A mistrial has been declared in the case of an ex-Whittier cop charged in the shooting an unarmed man in the back, leaving the man paralyzed.
• The American Cinematheque will operate and program the historic Village Theater in Westwood as it undergoes a $25-million restoration aimed at a 2027 reopening.
• UCLA is building a 19-story tower expected to house 1,150 students near the Westwood campus.
• Authorities located clothes and personal belongings of a 78-year-old man who disappeared from his mountain community in high Sierra in August.
• Kessler twins Ellen and Alice, singer-dancers who performed with Sinatra and Belafonte, died by medically assisted suicide, together at 89.

Commentary and opinions

• The Palm Springs Art Museum is in crisis as trustees exit after a January audit letter warned about finances, writes art critic Christopher Knight.
• People should stop cutting Ghislaine Maxwell so much slack, argues guest contributor Katy Butler.
• Subsidizing insurance just props up dysfunction. Empower consumers instead, writes guest contributor Kim-Lien Nguyen.

This morning’s must reads

California

California’s child farmworkers: Exhausted, underpaid and toiling in toxic fields

State officials are failing to protect the health and safety of thousands of young field laborers, an investigation has found.

Nov. 20, 2025

Other must reads

• Jason Clarke enjoyed “disappearing” into Alex Murdaugh in “Death in the Family,” even if it hurt.
• She’s the wizard who shot both “Wicked” movies. Her road to a Hollywood career was far from magical.
• A self-tape audition landed Odessa A’zion “Marty Supreme.” She’s still pinching herself.

For your downtime

Clockwise from bottom left, Grand Kiev Ballet, American Ballet Theatre and Inland Pacific Ballet

(Los Angeles Times photo collage; illustrations by Katie Smith / For The Times; photographs from Grand Kyiv Ballet, Cheryl Mann and Marsha McNeely Photography)

Going out

• Theme parks: The best things to do, see and eat at Disneyland during its magical 2025 holiday season.
• Holiday events: Get into the Nutcracker spirit with these 16 ways to experience the holiday tradition in and around L.A.
• Dancing: Take a dance class with Teresa “Toogie” Barcelo, Dua Lipa’s former choreographer.

Staying in

• Movies: Catch these documentaries that make up some of the year’s top films.
• Books: See how Patti Smith tapped into her “child self” in her new memoir “Bread of Angels.”
• Recipes: Wow at Friendsgiving with this Sweet Potato and Apple Casserole.
• ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and jigsaw games.

And finally ... from our archives

Dec. 21, 1969: Four people sit around a campfire on Alcatraz Island near the start of the 19-month Indigenous occupation.

(Los Angeles Times)

On Nov. 20, 1969, Native activists began an occupation of Alcatraz Island in the name of Indigenous civil rights. Former Times columnist Carolina Miranda wrote about the takeover during its 51st anniversary and the Alcatraz Logbook, which included thousands of entries written by the men, women and children who occupied the island.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
June Hsu, editorial fellow
Andrew Campa, weekend reporter
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

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