With this year's theme “Decades,” LAANE commemorates 30 years of transformative work while looking to the future as we explore new arenas and opportunities in which to fight for working families. Join us as LAANE looks ahead on continuing the fight now and for the next 30 years. The 2023 City of Justice Awards honorees are:

Billie Jean King, Champion of Equality

Stella T. Maloyan, Principal, Stellar Strategies Group and LAANE's first Development Director

National Women's Soccer League Players Association (NWSLPA)

Sheryl Lee Ralph and Vincent Hughes, Award-winning Actress, Activist, and Philanthropist

State Senator, Pennsylvania's 7th Senatorial District and Democratic Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee

The Legacy of Gary Stewart, from The Gary Stewart Appreciation Society

The premier progressive event in California, the City of Justice Awards Dinner attracts over 1,000 attendees, among them elected officials, labor leaders, entertainment executives, philanthropists, business owners, and activists, and honors outstanding leaders who improve the lives of working families. Past honorees and speakers at LAANE events include entertainment visionaries Jane Fonda, Norman Lear, and Alana Mayo; labor leaders Randi Weingarten, April Verrett, John Grant, Kenneth Rigmaiden, James P. Hoffa, and Ron Miller; business leaders AEG, Westfield, and Cordoba Corporation; Vice President Kamala Harris, Modern Family, and many more.

Learn more and RSVP here.

Every solution you’ll hear about during this series of six presentations works to counter systemic racism. You’ll hear directly from a researcher advocating to reform the child welfare system that removes Black children from their homes at disproportionately high rates. Or the woman who launched the first guaranteed income program in the U.S. to serve single Black mothers. Others are dismantling the financial penalties that create barriers to economic opportunity in Las Vegas and Durham, North Carolina.

You’ll hear about a mediation program in Philadelphia that has resulted in diverting evictions and preventing tenants from being pushed into poverty. Then there’s Dark Matter University, a network of design practitioners using their positions inside established programs to bring an antiracist lens to design education. Together, these solutions challenge us to think critically about how policies and practices perpetuate institutional racism, and what it will take to knock down those harmful assumptions and forge a new paradigm.

Solutions of the Year is a multi-day virtual convening, including seven sessions, that will frame the conversation for 2022. You can purchase a single ticket now to all of the events for just $50, or pay what you wish by registering for each event individually. All who donate will receive a copy of our annual Solutions of the Year special issue magazine.

Learn more and RSVP here.

Join us Thursday, November 4th for our annual Urban Marketplace event!

Urban Marketplace 2021 and 2022 will focus on opportunities to advance equity through infrastructure investments (i.e., transportation infrastructure, housing infrastructure, food infrastructure and water infrastructure) in historically underinvested communities and communities of color and discuss strategies to make a deal and make a difference.

Urban Marketplace 2021

This Fall, we’ll host a virtual panel discussion about strategies to repair past harm caused by infrastructure investments on communities of color and poor communities and utilizing future investments to spur change.

Register today for the Virtual Fall Session and keep an eye out for more information coming soon about the In-Person Spring Session!

Find out more and RSVP here.

Call for Action: “House All Angelenos” Panel Discussions

Presented by: AIA LA Government Outreach (GO!) Committee

This is a virtual series of panel discussions. RSVP directly to each zoom link below.

On May 25, 2021 the AIA LA Board put forth a series of concrete recommendations directed at our City’s leadership to facilitate the building of affordable housing and promote social justice. To read the text in full, CLICK HERE.

As a follow up to this “Call for Action,” the AIA LA Government Outreach (GO!) Committee has organized three panel discussions for AIA LA members and the greater LA design community to discuss and clarify the recommendations from the AIA LA board. The three panel discussions will each be led by architects Chava Danielson, AIA, Rick Corsini, AIA, and Tracy Stone, AIA, and will include policy experts, academics, and architects/urbanists.

For more information on each panel, see descriptions below.

Panel #1 = Reinventing Los Angeles’ Boulevards – Finally!
Tuesday, October 26 (8:00am – 9:30am) = RSVP #1 HERE.
Panel #2 = Housing as a Civil Right and Exclusionary Practices: The Way Forward
Monday, November 1 (9:00am to 10:30am) = RSVP #2 HERE.
Panel #3 = Rethinking the Los Angeles Housing Paradigm, or How to Make the System Work For Us, and Not Against Us
Tuesday, November 9 (8:00am – 9:30am) = RSVP #3 HERE.

Soul City – ​Film Screening and Session discussion

DAY 1 | August 5th | 12 pm to 1:30 pm ET

Soul City is a planned community in North Carolina that was first proposed in 1969 by Floyd McKissick, a civil rights leader and director of the Congress of Racial Equality. Soul City was one of thirteen model city projects under the Urban Growth and New Community Development Act. The city was intended to be a community built and open to all races, but placed emphasis on providing opportunities for minorities and the poor.

This event includes a 30 min film screening of Soul City followed by a panel discussion.

Learn more and RSVP here.

Across the country, there has been an alarming rise in verbal and physical attacks against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. Shootings at three Atlanta-area spas that recently left six women of Asian descent dead have further shaken the community. On Friday, March 26 at 11:30am ET, national reporter Michelle Ye Hee Lee speaks with Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), the group’s second vice-chair, about the growing fears and calls for action.

Stream here: wapo.st/chutakano

Learn more and RSVP here.

Join us for Toward an Anti-Racist Architecture, a panel hosted and moderated by UCLA Architecture and Design PhD students.

How do we interrogate the architectural discipline and promote an anti-racist approach to the discourse?

This panel will begin a discussion on building an anti-racist discourse into architectural practice and architectural history. The intent is not simply to highlight or reify the concept of race or racism in architectural practice and history but to begin to build a language to dismantle and advance beyond these destructive forces. The ambition is to create a platform for exchanges and to link with other arenas that are already undertaking this anti-racist work and suggest how students can apply this practice in their futures. This panel will bring together four professionals and scholars in various fields of overlapping design practice and study, asking them to speak not only about how they have integrated an anti-racist discourse into their work but also about how they have transformed their respective practices into moments of self-criticality in order to build an equtible and just future for design.

Panelists include:

• Tsione Wolde-Michael, Ph.D. Candidate in History, Harvard University

• Germane Barnes, Assistant Professor and the Director of The Community Housing & Identity Lab (CHIL), University of Miami School of Architecture, Founder of Studio Barnes

• Amber Wiley, Assistant Professor, Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences Art History Department

• Sara Zewde, Assistant Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture, Harvard GSD

Learn more here and RSVP here.

Our beloved nation finds itself at another historic crossroads in the long struggle for racial equality and liberation. Growing national movements to rectify the twin evils of mass incarceration and discriminatory barriers to employment and housing when people return home from prison have passed model public policies such as Ban the Box in employment and Fair Chance Housing.  As our cities grow more and more expensive to live in and homelessness explodes, what are model public policy solutions that enable people with criminal records to access stable and affordable housing?  As we work to create a more perfect union, how do we not replicate racial oppression in our public policymaking processes by honoring the voices and leadership of formerly incarcerated residents?  What are the myths and stories that society tells us about people with criminal records and how has that prevented us from providing a basic human need and right to housing?

Join us on International Human Rights Day as we engage in dialogue with the people who did the heavy-lifting to create North Star Fair Chance Housing policies!

Visit www.fairchance4all.org for a policy comparison chart of the nation’s North Star Fair Chance Housing policies as well as links to the ordinances themselves.  

Click here for more information about speakers and RSVP here.

FEATURING: NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK FOUNDER REV. AL SHARPTON, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE KAREN BASS, SINGER, PRODUCER AND ENTREPRENEUR PHARRELL WILLIAMS, BLACK LIVES MATTER CO-FOUNDER OPAL TOMETI AND MAYOR OF SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA MELVIN CARTER.

Join TIME as we convene extraordinary leaders from every field to spotlight solutions and encourage action toward a better world. This week’s episode will focus on how people across the U.S. are mobilizing for justice and equality.

After registering, you will receive an email with the link to watch the livestream.

Register here.

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, civic discourse in Los Angeles has been centered around talk of reimagining public safety. Many people have asked, “what does that really mean and how does it keep neighborhoods safe?”

You can find out first-hand, from the community organizers who have been calling for ways to provide for public safety, public health, and emergency response through alternatives to policing. In an online event moderated by former CNN anchor Carol Costello, representatives from Black Lives Matter LA and Peoples Budget LA will share their vision and answer your questions.

Many Angelenos are coming to understand that our system of public safety makes many people feel unsafe. They want to know why and how. They want to hear different perspectives, and they want to know how to make everyone in Los Angeles feel safe, regardless of zip code, race, or skin color.

Please join Councilmember Mike Bonin and your neighbors this Monday at 7pm for a virtual town hall event. The event will be streamed on Councilmember Bonin's Facebook page (Facebook.com/MikeBoninCD11). RSVP below to receive a link to join the town hall.

WHAT: Reimagining Public Safety - Westside Town Hall
WHEN: Monday, August 10, 2020; 7 pm

Co-hosted by: Healthy LA Coalition, LA Voice, Leo Baeck Temple

RSVP here.

Given the ongoing mass movement for social justice and police reform in the United States, we at Civicas would like to explore reform efforts in Los Angeles and what can be done to improve policing in our city, as well as potential implications for national reform.

This webinar will be moderated by Deb Yang, Civicas Board Member and former member of LA Police Commission.

Panelists include:
Connie Rice, Co-founder & Co-Director of The Advancement Project, member of Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Developer LA’s Community Safety Partnership
Gerry Chaleff, Criminal Defense Attorney, LAPD’s First Special Assistant for Constitutional Policing
Carol Sobel, Civil Rights Lawyer, Advocate, leading lawsuits against LA City on behalf of homeless people and protesters.

We hope you will join us!

Find out more about the event and register here.

*This program has been postponed. Please check back for updates.*

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) represents Minneapolis and its suburbs. Since the murder of George Floyd, her city has been the epicenter of global protests for justice and peace. She has introduced bills calling for accountability and restricting the use of the military against U.S. citizens, and is fighting to protect communities from police misuse of force and the economic fallout from coronavirus.

Find out more about the event here and stay tuned for an updated date.

Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie G. Bunch III is the founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. Bunch joins Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart for a one-on-one conversation on the legacy of Juneteenth, the commemoration of the ending of slavery in the U.S. They will discuss race, recent protests against police brutality, and his role as the first-ever African American Secretary of the Smithsonian. Join Washington Post Live on Friday, June 19 at 9:00 a.m. ET.

Find out more about the event and speakers here.