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Home Collections Selected Collections on Los Angeles A-C D-H I-L M-P Q-XYZ General Information News & Events Membership SCL Murals |
The Southern California Library held
its 2007 annual event, "Without Fear...Claiming Safe Communities Without Sacrificing Ourselves"
on Thursday, April 26, 2007 at the L.A. River Center.The event gave us an opportunity to show our great love and respect for honorees Ruthie Gilmore and Michael Zinzun, and to begin a dialogue so together we can seek alternatives to the criminalization and incarceration of our communities. At a time when people are treated like criminals simply because they are poor and of color, the event allowed us to bring attention to how central these issues across a range of areas--like work, immigration, and schools--so that people can make connections to their own work.
From the Introduction to the Event Reader... Downtown, very poor and homeless people are being swept off the sidewalks, like so much trash, to make the city "safe" for luxury condo developments. People who desperately need treatment and resources are being locked up on petty charges, harassed, and brutalized--all with official sanction, under the Safer City initiative.
We love and honor Ruthie Wilson Gilmore and the late Michael Zinzun
for their willingness to show up; to speak up; and to say the impossible.
Ruth Wilson Gilmore has always worked deeply rooted in community, combining studies
of history and geography with activism. She has long worked with families of
prisoners and is a member of the founding collective of Critical Resistance,
one of the most important national anti-prison organizations in the United States.
A professor at USC, Ruthie has written a book that is destined to become a seminal work
on prisons: Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing
California.
 Michael Zinzun, who died in 2006, was co-founder of the Coalition Against Police Abuse
(CAPA), an organization that grew out of the work of the Black Panther Party. Michael
waged fierce battles against police abuse of our constitutional rights in street protests
and in the courts. He pushed for decades to have elected civilian police review boards
in cities across L.A. County and worked successfully with the ACLU to curtail spying
by the L.A.P.D. Operating on a motto of "We'll work with you, not for you," Michael's work
and life demonstrate the power of community. His papers have been donated to the Library.
The event featured:
 Musical Performance by Jazz Legend Dwight TribleA visionary jazz vocalist who has produced some of the finest musical moments in Los Angeles in recent years.
KPFK was a media sponsor of this event.
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