We want to send a message to the President asking him to intervene and
send a strong message to LA Metro and all federally funded agencies
about the importance of Civil Rights. We are gathering with Bus Riders Union friends and allies all over the country to send an email to President Obama. He needs to hear from you.

SYOA intern Khushboo Gulati wrote this essay on the importance of Art as Resistance. "Resistance art is the product of stories unheard, resilience ignored, and ideas suppressed. It is a vessel through which people unite, histories are documented and through which one can learn. Recording our work, our struggle, our losses and our victories is the only way we can keep our unheard histories and herstories alive as US hegemony controls our textbooks and classes."

LA Times story leads wide media coverage of the July 25 launch rally for the BRU's "Mr. President, Enforce, Restore, Expand Our Civil Rights" campaign. Media recap here. 

Joined by 30 organizations from across LA, the BRU launched a national campaign with a rally calling on President Obama to enforce civil rights law and order the restoration of one million hours of bus service in LA. The campaign's public challenge to Obama and Mayor Villaraigosa was to side with a pro-civil rights, working class, environmental justice, bus-centered transit vision over a corporatist, gentrifying rail-centered vision of LA.  

Extreme weather, here and around the world, is keeping the discussion about climate change going. As we move into an election year, GOP pundits are ramping up their "climate denial" rhetoric.

In the tradition of Rosa Parks and the Freedom Riders, LA's buses are once again a frontline battleground for the future of civil rights. On July 25, 11am at City Hall, the Bus Riders Union is launching a national campaign calling on President Obama to stand for the civil rights of Black and Latino transit riders in Los Angeles by restoring one million hours of bus service in LA and restoring the public's right to sue for civil rights.

Simon Butler of Climate Change/Social Change examines the latest weather as the United States was hit by freak storms, intense heatwaves, prolonged drought, huge floods and out-of-control bushfires that have burnt out more than 2.1 million acres.

As the Summer Youth Organizing Academy begins its program, we asked the youth to write about their experiences. First in the series is summer intern Stephen Samayoa.

A coalition of parents, students and civil rights groups are working together to reform school discipline. Right now in California there are bills in the State Assembly that address school discipline policy and we are working with our Dignity in Schools allies to support this vital reform.