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Community Coalition

CoCo trains activists and organizers in order to support power building with Black, Brown, Indigenous, and people of color.

THE PEOPLE'S STORIES
CENTER FOR COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

Leadership

While the last three years have taken us backwards, there has been considerable change in the field of community organizing over the past three decades that can help inform and strengthen local power building strategies. For three decades, Community Coalition (CoCo) has been a part of Los Angeles’ political and movement landscape. CoCo was founded intentionally as an African American and Latino organization that is intergenerational in all of its work. The organization has been at the forefront of efforts locally at the school board, city, county, state, and federal level to advance racial and economic justice.

CoCo has developed two generations of leaders, that include both youth and adult member residents of South Los Angeles. Our members have improved the physical environments of L.A’s highest needs schools, closed the achievement gap, and won numerous measures that are helping to change the material conditions in communities of color in South Central.

CoCo’s founder Congressmember Karen Bass

Impact

Community Coalition centers the voices and leadership of people of color as we collectively work to upend systemic racism. The formation of our organization 30 years ago during the height of the crack cocaine epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s is rooted in our deep commitment to racial justice. Founded intentionally as a Black/Brown organization, Community Coalition understands the power that lies in bringing people together and serving as part of a larger movement. We know firsthand that it is the people closest to the issues who know what is best for their communities.

As a grassroots organizing institution, we are accountable to the residents of South Los Angeles — one of the most impacted and under-resourced areas in the state and in the region — to galvanize their power to assert their leadership and to create the policies that will ensure stability, safety and liberation. It is because of this commitment that the South Los Angeles community has been a leader in groundbreaking campaigns to: transform our schools, reimagine and build a healthy environment, shape policy on kinship care and rebuild the social safety net to keep families together, cultivate homegrown leadership, build electoral power, and establish a permanent institution for social change.

Vision

In June 2019, in partnership with Community Change and Building Movement Project, CoCo held a convening where we gathered over 20 leaders of power-building groups from Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, and Tennessee, in addition to partner organizations from California. The convening featured rich discussions and what we heard was: CoCo’s compelling history as it relates to organizing, campaign wins, and social justice is a story that needs to be shared.

Building on our 30-year history of galvanizing people and political power, Community Coalition has a vision to harness the power of activists and communities from across the nation in multi-racial organizing through our Center for Community Organizing (CCO). CoCo will train a cadre of activists and organizers dedicated to supporting local power building with people of color across the country. Elements of the CCO will include a national school for organizers, civic leadership training, a cross-city learning lab, an inside/outside strategy think tank, and an arts and cultural activism hub.

CoCo Develops Leaders

ANNETTA WELLS

SCYEA Class of 1997
CSU Northridge
Deputy Political Director
SEIU Local 2015

“I learned how to channel my anger into an effective means of organizing. I felt empowered to be involved and get others involved with me.”

CARLOS LEON

SCYEA Class of 2001
CSU Long Beach
Lead Community Organizer
Community Coalition

“To see hundreds and hundreds, literally hundreds of students on buses during the Fremont 911 campaign was so powerful.”

MARCUS MCKINNEY

SCYEA Class of 2002
UC Davis
Senior Director, Government Affairs & Public Policy
Center for Policing Equity

“SCYEA was my foundation. That’s the simplest way to put it. We were provided with a political identity, a political compass, a way to look at the world, a set of tools, an analysis.”

LIZETTE TEJEDA

SCYEA Class of 2012
UC Santa Cruz
Program Manager
Junior Achievement of Southern California

“SCYEA really allowed me to see the importance of what it means to not only lead your community and go to college, but also come back to give back in whatever way I can. And that’s exactly what I did.”

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The activism of Community Coalition members and community residents has been a steadfast catalyst for aid in South LA for decades. Anything you’re able to give to CoCo right now would be appreciated in our continued efforts to improve the material conditions in South LA as we respond to the community’s needs during and after the Corona crisis. 

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