LA 2026: Leaders & Achievement

On Tuesday, September 8, 12-1pm, the USC Libraries in partnership with the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute will host on Zoom our third and final program related to the exhibition "1776-1976: USC, Los Angeles, and the US Bicentennial” that is on view on the first floor of DML.  

This virtual conversation will focus on the power of grassroots activism in shaping education, civic institutions, and American politics. Drawing on the themes of the USC Libraries exhibition “1776-1976: USC, Los Angeles, and the U.S. Bicentennial,” Allissa Richardson (Associate Professor of Journalism and Communication, USC Annenberg) and David-James Gonzales (Associate Professor of History, Brigham Young University) will consider how individual leadership and collective movements brought the promises of the Declaration of Independence to Southern California.

Dr. Richardson is the author of Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest #Journalism (2020). Dr. Gonzales is the author of Breaking Down the Walls of Segregation: Mexican American Grassroots Politics and Civil Rights in Orange County, California (2025).