The Liberty Hill Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Sarah Pillsbury, heir to the Minnesota Pillsbury baking fortune, in 1976. Its motto is "Change. Not Charity." They have funded local Los Angeles organizations dedicated to environmental justice, such as East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. The name of the foundation derives from a famous incident on May 15, 1923 when writer Upton Sinclair spoke to approximately 3,000 striking longshoremen at Liberty Hill in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California. In a piece of street theater designed to highlight ongoing suppression of freedom of speech by the LAPD, Sinclair began his address by reading the Bill of Rights. Within moments, he was arrested.
Famous quotes containing the words liberty, hill and/or foundation:
“This spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“‘O glorious Life, Who dwellest in earth and sun,
I have lived, I praise and adore Thee.”
A sword swept.
Over the pass the voices one by one
Faded, and the hill slept.”
—Sir Henry Newbolt (1862–1938)
“I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were,—its foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)