March 16, 2023
By Denise J. Gibbs
Contributing Writer
Dr. Joyce Dixon Hightower is a medical doctor, accomplished author, speaker, and compassionate humanitarian who has been educating, feeding, and housing marginalized youth, empowering women, and strengthening African communities and families for over 30 years.
Hightower grew up in a poor rural area in Northern Los Angeles County under the strong influence of community service from her father, Superintendent Samuel Dixon, pastor of Macedonia Church of God in Christ, and mother, Evelyn Dixon, medical technologist.
Her work experience in Africa began in 1977 as a high school science teacher in rural Kenya. In response to the challenge to increase the number of the country’s candidates for medical school, Hightower returned to the U.S. and completed medical school in 1988.
While practicing in central California, Hightower led medical mission teams to Kenya and supported orphanages and rural clinics with supplies. In 2001, a unique medical mission trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in Central Africa caused a dramatic change in the direction of her life. I
n 2002, Hightower returned to DRC as a volunteer public health improvement consultant.
In 2009, Hightower began working for the World Health Organization (WHO) in the African Region. She found ways to support orphans, especially in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, while continuing to develop DRC efforts.
In 2012, she founded the Dixon-Hightower Foundation, a 501c3 organization that uniquely focused on providing ongoing charitable and quality education to support orphans, widows, and marginalized people worldwide.
Winding her WHO efforts down for retirement, in 2015, Hightower was sent to Guinea Conakry to lead the WHO fight against the Ebola pandemic. It turned out to be one of the high achievement points of her career. After returning to the U.S., she began working in a local clinic to support the DRC orphanage and school and retired again in 2021.
Outlining her plans, Hightower explained, “As in other projects in various countries over the last 30 years, the one planned in the DRC will be self-sufficient when completed. The Solid Rock Youth Complex (SRYC) project in the (DRC) has lasted the longest and received a significant financial investment because of its strategic capacity to impact the greatest need.
“We are giving livelihood training for widows, providing housing for orphans, and have 200 students attending (pre-school through 6th grade presently occupying much of the orphanage building). Our school has a 100% national exam pass rate, and the demand for placement for orphans and students has skyrocketed,” she said.
“We must raise $700,000 to complete the school building, 7th through 12th grade, for over four hundred children. Once the school moves out of the orphanage building, we could accept more baby orphans.”
Hightower’s uncle, the honorable Bishop Roy Dixon, D.D., jurisdictional prelate of Southern California 4th Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, Church of God in Christ, said, “I’ve been to the Congo and visited the school, orphanage, and widows’ project comprising the Solid Rock Youth Complex sponsored by the Dixon-Hightower Foundation. It’s such an unusual thing that my niece is doing. She’s an M.D. and gives 90% of her salary to this work in the Congo. There are many miraculous stories to tell.”
Dixon continued, “She built the orphanage, and 17 homeless, fatherless, and motherless children call SRYC home. They are at that school day and night because this is their home. She’s their mother, she is their father, and this is the only hope these children and many others have.
“Not only is she providing for those children physically, emotionally, and educationally at the school that she is building, but she is also putting them through higher grades in other facilities throughout the Congo.”
When asked, what is your desire for the women, children, and people in the Congo where you’re still helping and have invested so many years?
Hightower stated, “I would like this project to stand as an encouraging example of hope and self-sufficiency by using support tools provided and working hard together. I want the people that we support to know that God hears their prayers wherever they are and provides for them.
“Just like God put it in my heart to come all the way from Newhall, California, He can hear their prayers to do whatever He puts in their hearts to do.”
Sharing what she’d like her life to reflect, Hightower said, “I want the biggest message of my life to be that God puts in your heart what He uses to show His greatness, love, and almighty power.
We have the privilege of joining in these loving acts.”
To lend support, visit: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=USX9VBUBN32HQ or https://gofund.me/a416541f
Learn more at: https://www.dixonhightowerfoundation.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/dixon-hightower-foundation
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March 16, 2023
The UCLA Labor Center hosted a homecoming celebration on Friday in honor of Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles) for her recent election to the California State Senate.
Before winning her election in November, Senator Smallwood-Cuevas spent 15 years working for the UCLA Labor Center, where she directed the Center for the Advancement of Racial Equity (CARE) at Work and co-founded the Los Angeles Black Worker Center, the nation’s first Black Worker Center.
Senator Smallwood-Cuevas is the only Black woman in the California State Senate and a champion for all working families.
“I am honored and humbled to be celebrated by such a groundbreaking institution as the UCLA Labor Center, where I spent most of my organizing years advocating for the rights of Black workers and workers of other marginalized communities,” said Senator Smallwood-Cuevas.
“The UCLA Labor Center will always be a part of my family. As a State Senator, I will continue to fight alongside them to help make a more equitable California for all working families.”
During the homecoming celebration that featured a cultural performance, Senator Smallwood-Cuevas addressed her former UCLA Labor Center colleagues at a special luncheon held in her honor.
She also received commendatory remarks from Kent Wong, Director of the UCLA Labor Center.
“Senator Smallwood-Cuevas is a trailblazer who should be celebrated.
She is an educator, labor organizer and community advocate who has dedicated her life to economic and racial justice,” said Wong.
“Over the course of her career, she has advanced research, education and community empowerment – and now as the only Black woman in the California State Senate, she is leaving a legacy for future generations to look up to.”
Following the luncheon, a larger public event was held for students, faculty and community members to join the celebration.
During the public event, Senator Smallwood-Cuevas participated in an insightful sit-down interview facilitated by UCLA Professor Robin D. G. Kelley, a Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History.
Nearly 100 people attended the afternoon celebration event, which was held at the UCLA James West Alumni Center.
Senator Lola Smallwood Cuevas represents the 28th Senate District, which includes the communities of South Los Angeles, Culver City, West Los Angeles, Century City and Downtown Los Angeles.
Senator Smallwood-Cuevas spent more than two decades serving as a labor organizer, civil rights activist and community advocate before winning her first political race as a State Senator. She resides in the View Park community of Los Angeles with her family.
March 16, 2023
By Antonio Ray Harvey
California Black Media
Last week, Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood) joined a diverse panel of women legislators at the “Women in California’s Legislature: 2023 Speaker Series on California’s Future” luncheon to discuss the essential roles they play in shaping governmental policies benefiting Californians.
The event was hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) at the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Sacramento.
This year’s class of legislators includes the largest number of women in state history– 18 senators and 32 assemblymembers. Joining McKinnor on the panel by were state Senators Janet Nguyen (R-Garden Grove) and Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), and Assemblymember Liz Ortega (D-San Leandro).
McKinnor said she made the decision to get into politics after seeing the video of police officers beating motorist Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1992.
Over the years, Mckinnor said, a major influence on her policy decisions are the learnings she gleans from raising a family.
“I think (women) bring diversity to the table because we are about taking care of our families,” McKinnor said. “So, the legislation that you see coming out of this (panel), I believe, will be around housing, jobs, equity, and public safety. The women here are going to make a tremendous difference because we take care of our families differently.”
Before McKinnor was elected to the California State Assembly in June 2022, she served as civic engagement director for the non-profit LA Voice and previously served as operational director for the California Democratic Party and chief of staff to several members of the State Assembly. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in accounting from California State University Dominguez Hills.
McKinnor is currently chair of the Public Employment and Retirement Committee. She serves on other policy committees, including the Business and Professions Committee, Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee, and the Governmental Organization Committee.
McKinnor’s legislative priorities include California’s continued COVID-19 recovery, increased funding for public education, expanded universal access to healthcare, the state’s housing and homelessness crisis, and reforming the state’s criminal justice system.
“I never thought I’d be in politics in 1992. I thought I had better get off the sofa and pay attention to what’s going on,” McKinnor said. “After that, I didn’t sit down, and I got involved in the community.”
Black women are 7.7% of the total U.S. population and 15.3% of the total number of women in the country, according to the U.S. Census.
In 2021 study, the State Innovation Exchange (SIE) – a group that advocates for representation in state legislatures -- and the National Organization for Black Elected Legislative Women (NOBEL Women) took a deep dive into their analysis of women serving in government.
SIE and NOBEL Women reported that Black women fill just 4.82% (356) of 7,383 state legislature seats across the United States. That same year, eight state legislatures convened without a single Black woman in their ranks: Vermont, South Dakota, Hawaii, Arizona, Idaho, Nebraska, Montana, and North Dakota – all places with Black populations falling in a range from 2 to 6%, the study revealed.
Currently, there are five Black women in the California Legislature: McKinnor and Assemblymembers Lori D. Wilson (D-Suisun City), Mia Bonta (D-Alameda), Akilah Weber (D-La Mesa) and Sen. Lola Smallwood Cuevas (D-Ladera Heights). They are also members of the California Legislature Black Caucus.
Smallwoold-Cuevas is the lone Black woman among 40 state senators.
“I am the 20th Black woman to be elected to the (California) legislature,” McKinnor said at the event held on International Women’s Day. “Sen. Lola Smallwood became the 21st Black woman. So, we still have a lot of work to do.”
PPIC, the nonprofit that organized the event, bills itself as nonpartisan think tank with a mission to inform and improve public policy in California through independent, objective, nonpartisan research. Former California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye is PPIC’s president and chief executive officer.
Ophelia Basgal, an affiliate at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at University of California, Berkeley, and a senior executive consultant for Inclusion INC, provided the opening remarks.
All the women legislators who participated in the event are members of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus, a political body that represents and advocates on the behalf of the diverse interests of women, children and families.
The panelists discussed gender diversity in state politics, how personal interests play out in politics, legislation they are currently working on, setting better policy for the state, and offered advice to women who are interested in running for office.
“In addition to the vision and experience, we bring that voice into the room that is often unheard and unseen,” said Ortega, a longtime labor leader and activist from an immigrant family. “We will make sure we are seen and heard and deliver (policies) for all in the state of California and the United States.”
The Sheraton Ballroom in downtown Sacramento was filled with women and men listening to the 60-minute conversation between the women that was at times passionate, thought-provoking, reflective and lighthearted.
“We’ve been truly inspired by this distinguished panel for their questions, insight, and answers,” Cantil-Sakauye said to the audience. “Thank you for making this (speakers series) memorable.”
March 16, 2023