Power In Partnership: From Wins to Implementation
Canvassing to Save Lives
No movement is an island. Our grantees work across many issue areas and often partner with other community organizations and unique partners to make change possible through collective power-building, strategy and campaigns. Together, they are fighting to implement the policy victories that have been so hard fought through the movements for racial justice, economic and housing justice, environmental and climate justice, youth mand transformative justice, and LGBTQ and gender justice.
Working Together to End Toxic Neighborhood Drilling
Ending toxic neighborhood oil drilling has been one of the key elements of our Agenda for a Just Future, and our partners have made incredible progress toward implementing this goal across Los Angeles City and County, resulting in both legislatures banning all new drilling and setting existing oil wells on a path to phaseout as soon as possible.
This past year, our partners in the STAND-L.A. coalition came together across their various movements and focus areas to launch a canvassing effort with the goal of ensuring the problematic Inglewood Oil Field—which sits in unincorporated LA County and currently has more than 850 active and idle wells—is included in implementation efforts to phase out oil drilling countywide.
The efforts to contact and engage communities surrounding the Oil Field, which are predominantly Black and Latinx, were undertaken by teams of canvassers from both SCOPE and Black Women for Wellness, who knocked on doors around the area for four weeks. They connected with nearly 5,000 families and learned that many people reported that living near the Inglewood Oil Field had caused negative health impacts in their community. Residents expressed anger that toxic industries had targeted their community, and fear for the health and safety of their families.
More than 750 residents took time to send an email or postcard urging the Board of Supervisors to move forward with making oil drilling a nonconforming use, expediting the phase-out period countywide, and implementing a just transition to help workers in the affected industries.
Thanks to their efforts, these residents are now more engaged than ever in ensuring the implementation of the County’s oil drilling phase-out process, and eager to fight to protect their neighborhoods.
Due to the complex zoning code in LA County, additional ordinances will be coming up in 2023 to ensure that the oil drilling phase-out is comprehensive and takes effect as soon as possible. And the voices of the neighbors who live adjacent to the Inglewood field will be more important than ever.
This success is the result of years of tireless advocacy from the partners in STAND-L.A. and our allies—but most importantly—this victory exemplifies the community power you can build through organizing. BWW fully intends to remain part of these efforts to center the voices of Black South LA residents who’ve too long been oppressed by environmental racism.
