Victory Takes a Village

As we saw this past year, with the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the renewed attacks on reproductive rights, there will never be a good time to stop fighting for justice.

The freedoms we hold so close to our hearts today can easily be snatched away tomorrow if we don’t fight to defend the future we seek. The forces that work to uphold systems of harm and injustice—while silencing and chilling debate—will not stop with one freedom, or one issue, or one group.

At Liberty Hill, we’ve been supporting frontline grassroots organizing that tackles these challenges head on for more than 40 years. Our partners have continued to mobilize in spite of the ongoing challenges of the pandemic, stepping up in new ways to provide mutual aid to their communities and push toward implementation of victories, such as rent control in more jurisdictions. They’ve kept up the pressure to fund care, not punishment, and fought for the implementation of the new Department of Youth Development, which launched this year. And they’re gearing up to defend and implement the recent victory that banned toxic neighborhood oil drilling in L.A. County.

In the fight for the future, implementation is the difference between stalled progress and real change.

In the face of the recent earthshaking Supreme Court decision, we’ve also seen the intersections between local movements for housing and racial justice, and the fight for reproductive freedom. Our partners across these movements are working together like never before in the face of new challenges.

We’ve seen the power of these partnerships in places like Bell Gardens where our partners from Unión de Vecinos, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, and East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice worked together across their issue areas to help local residents pass a much-needed rent control measure—the first majority Latinx city in California to do so.

These ties that bind our various movements can be strengthened. It’s this type of collective power-building that will be necessary if we want to turn our wins into real progress for people impacted by systemic oppression and lack of opportunity.

I believe it takes a village to make victory possible.

And we’re all a part of that village—whether you are a frontline organizer, a community leader, a community partner, or a donor activist—you play a unique role in ensuring our wins become real progress.

That’s why we are laser-focused on implementation. Victory is in the details—the process that turns protest calls into street marches, door knocking into board motions, and “yes votes” into laws and programs that have the potential to positively affect the lives of millions of Angelenos.

Advancing the Mission, Defending the Future means that we have to fight for the progressive future we want. We have to continue to defend our values and center people with lived experience. We have to continue to invest in local efforts that prove our methods work. And we have to fight to implement our victories and ensure this critical work is funded and carried out.

Thank you for keeping up the fight and standing beside us as we push forward toward a more just future.

Until Justice for All is realized.

Shane Murphy Goldsmith
President/CEO
Liberty Hill Foundation