Community Coalition Congratulates Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson
Last May, Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson (Council District 8) was unanimously elected by his colleagues to lead America’s second-largest city council. Today, he will be installed as Council President.
The Eighth District is home to over 248,000 people. Council President Harris-Dawson proudly represents the District with the city’s highest concentration of African Americans. Never afraid to discuss issues of race and equity, he deeply understands how decades of systematic disinvestment have harmed our communities and believes the people of South LA are its most excellent resource. After graduating from Morehouse College in 1995, Marqueece joined Community Coalition (CoCo) as a community organizer. Beginning in 2004, he succeeded CoCo founder Mayor Karen Bass as President and CEO.
During his tenure, CoCo stepped up to form “Communities for Educational Equity.” This campaign fought for, and won, access to A-G college prep classes for all students and schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Council President Harris-Dawson and CoCo were also integral in helping to win $350M in QEIA funds to reduce class sizes and improve academic performance for all LAUSD schools. The Prop 30 campaign that CoCo mounted successfully delivered $6.8B in new state revenue for education and Medi-Cal. Community Coalition also began its partnership with the Children’s Defense Fund’s Freedom Schools program–a national literacy program that aims to end the cradle-to-prison pipeline.
In 2015, Councilmember Harris-Dawson won his first election with 62 percent of the vote in an area that includes Baldwin Hills, Chesterfield Square, Crenshaw, Jefferson Park, Vermont Knolls and other communities. Re-elected to the Los Angeles City Council on March 3, 2020, Council President Harris-Dawson was the first African American and is the current chair of the city’s Planning Land Use and Management (PLUM) committee. The PLUM committee has introduced policies that combat homelessness, create quality jobs, clean streets, and encourage community policing. In fact, within his first 18 months as a council member, he authored Proposition HHH, a $1.2 billion bond for permanent supportive housing, the most significant investment towards ending homelessness in the nation.
Council President Harris-Dawson has said homelessness will be the council’s top priority under his leadership. “There’s no issue more important than the tens of thousands of people sleeping in the street every night, so we need to zero in on that as much as possible,” he told a local media outlet. “I don’t think there is any other business that supersedes that for the council.”