Social Justice

Ramifications of Pornography, with Roddy Cleary, at the UVM's Aiken Center

National Rainbow Coalition Conference, Washington D.C.  Comprehensive edit.

Rainbow/PUSH is a non-profit organization formed as a merger of two non-profit organizations founded by Jesse Jackson — Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and the National Rainbow Coalition. The organizations pursue social justice, civil rights and political activism.

In December 1971, Jackson resigned from Operation Breadbasket after clashing with Rev. Ralph Abernathy and founded Operation PUSH. Jackson founded the National Rainbow Coalition in 1984 which merged with PUSH in 1996. The combined organization keeps its national headquarters on the South Side of Chicago and has branches in Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Detroit, Houston, Atlanta, the Silicon Valley, and New Orleans.

Operation PUSH was successful at raising public awareness to initiate corporate action and government sponsorship. The National Rainbow coalition became a prominent political organization that raised public awareness on numerous political issues and consolidated a large voting bloc. The merged entity has undertaken numerous social initiatives.

Frank Wilkinson (August 16, 1914 – January 2, 2006) was a civil liberties activist, Executive Director of the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation and Executive Director of the First Amendment Foundation.

Wilkinson attended Beverly Hills High School. He was a 1936 graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles.^[1]

A lifelong progressive political activist, Wilkinson was caught up in the McCarthy Era when he defended a major public housing project, Elysian Park Heights, for the Chávez Ravine section of Los Angeles. Instead, Dodger Stadium eventually occupied the site. Wilkinson, in 1952, was the assistant director of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles. Critics of the plan claimed that public housing was part of a socialist plot. Wilkinson, called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, cited the First Amendment as his reason for not answering: the Committee had no right to ask. Cited for contempt of Congress, Wilkinson, was fired from his job in connection with his unwillingness to affirm or deny his political party membership.^[1]

After his release, Wilkinson became a leading opponent of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and in 1960 helped form the National Committee to Abolish HUAC, which evolved into the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation.[1] Because of his resistance to political repression, Wilkinson received the Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty; and the American Civil Liberties Union Eason Monroe Courageous Advocate Award, the Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award, and the 1997 National Lawyers’ Guild Legal Worker of the Year.

Street Dance Protesting U.S. Funding of Contra Aid in Nicaragua