On November 5, 2022, the Museum of Social Justice held its annual Tardeada back in person at the historic Pico House with Miriam Hernandez as the mistress of ceremonies. Together the Museum and guests celebrated Marlon West Ink Tributes, honoring the Black men and women who lost their lives to state-sanctioned violence and racism and celebrating the defenders of civil and women’s rights. We honored the activism of our 2022 social justice heroes–Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth, pastor, author, and Director of Innovation and Communication, California Pacific Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, Donzaleigh Abernathy, civil and human rights activist, author, and actress, and Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley, author, historian, and the Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in US History at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The Museum was privileged to spend the afternoon with you, our supporters. Thank you to our host, honorees, sponsors, guests, and volunteers. Because of your belief in our mission of telling the neglected stories of the diverse people of Los Angeles, we're able to continue our work.
You can enjoy the Tardeada again or for the first time below.
The Museum was privileged to spend the afternoon with you, our supporters. Thank you to our host, honorees, sponsors, guests, and volunteers. Because of your belief in our mission of telling the neglected stories of the diverse people of Los Angeles, we're able to continue our work.
You can enjoy the Tardeada again or for the first time below.
TARDEADA HOST
MIRIAM HERNANDEZ is known for her work on ABC7 EyeWitness News as a general assignment reporter.
She was born in Santa Barbara and raised in Santa Paula. When she was twelve, she got her first job writing a weekly youth column for the Santa Paula Daily Chronicle. She studied anthropology and theatre at UCLA, earning her Bachelor of Arts degree. She was awarded her Master of Communications at the University of Minnesota.
Her television career was launched at the NBC affiliate in San Diego. She has worked in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York, reporting for CNN, USA Today on TV, WUSA, and Good Morning America. She joined ABC 7 in 1998.
Miriam covered the Mexico City earthquake, political turmoil in Central America, and the Oklahoma City bombing. She was the first reporter allowed by the U.S. Marshal Service to take a TV camera behind the vaulted doors of the Federal Witness Protection Program.
Throughout her career, Miriam was named by Hispanic Magazine as one of the top 100 women in communications and won several Valley Press awards and Emmy nominations.
She was born in Santa Barbara and raised in Santa Paula. When she was twelve, she got her first job writing a weekly youth column for the Santa Paula Daily Chronicle. She studied anthropology and theatre at UCLA, earning her Bachelor of Arts degree. She was awarded her Master of Communications at the University of Minnesota.
Her television career was launched at the NBC affiliate in San Diego. She has worked in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York, reporting for CNN, USA Today on TV, WUSA, and Good Morning America. She joined ABC 7 in 1998.
Miriam covered the Mexico City earthquake, political turmoil in Central America, and the Oklahoma City bombing. She was the first reporter allowed by the U.S. Marshal Service to take a TV camera behind the vaulted doors of the Federal Witness Protection Program.
Throughout her career, Miriam was named by Hispanic Magazine as one of the top 100 women in communications and won several Valley Press awards and Emmy nominations.
MSJ 2022 SOCIAL JUSTICE HONOREES
BISHOP CEDRICK BRIDGEFORTH is the Director of Innovation and Communication for the California-Pacific Annual Conference. In his new position, Cedrick looks forward to “the adventure of coming alongside laity and clergy in various communities who have dreams that need champions and voice to bring them to fruition.”
Cedrick’s most recent book, Alabama Grandson: A Black, Gay Minister’s Passage Out of Hiding (Precocity Press), was released in August 2021.
Born in Decatur, Alabama, Cedrick served four years in the United States Air Force. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in religion from Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, and a Doctor of Education in organizational leadership from Pepperdine University, Malibu, California.
He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., a past president of Black Methodists for Church Renewal, and a former district superintendent and dean of cabinet. He served as pastor of Grace United Methodist Church, Los Angeles, and directed academic programs and outreach at the Ecumenical Center for Black Church Studies, University of La Verne. In addition to heading California-Pacific General and jurisdictional conference delegations, Cedrick founded 20/20 Leadership Lessons Inc.
Cedrick’s most recent book, Alabama Grandson: A Black, Gay Minister’s Passage Out of Hiding (Precocity Press), was released in August 2021.
Born in Decatur, Alabama, Cedrick served four years in the United States Air Force. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in religion from Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, and a Doctor of Education in organizational leadership from Pepperdine University, Malibu, California.
He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., a past president of Black Methodists for Church Renewal, and a former district superintendent and dean of cabinet. He served as pastor of Grace United Methodist Church, Los Angeles, and directed academic programs and outreach at the Ecumenical Center for Black Church Studies, University of La Verne. In addition to heading California-Pacific General and jurisdictional conference delegations, Cedrick founded 20/20 Leadership Lessons Inc.
DONZALEIGH ABERNATHY is an actor, author, and civil rights activist. She was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, during the civil rights movement. Abernathy briefly attended the Northside High School for the Performing Arts before attending and graduating from George School, a Quaker Prep School in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Emerson College in Boston, Abernathy moved to New York. After auditioning for a role with the Off-Broadway production, she landed her first job. Since then, Abernathy has played roles in many movies and television series. She is married to actor/producer Dar Dixon Bijarchi.
Abernathy’s father was Rev. Ralph Abernathy, an influential leader in the civil rights movement. She joined her father and her mother, Juanita Jones Abernathy, and witnessed many significant events of the movement. Her family was very close to that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Abernathy and King children went to school together and integrated Spring Street Elementary School.
Abernathy has an extensive career in film, onstage, and television. She won the Tanne Foundation 2012 Artist Award for her acting work and her script Birmingham Sunday. She starred for four years as a series regular on Lifetime Television's critically acclaimed dramatic series, Any Day Now. She received recognition from film critic Roger Ebert for her performance in the Warner Bros. film Gods and Generals. She starred as the leading lady in the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning HBO film Don King: Only in America. In the HBO Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning Miss Evers’ Boys, she co-starred with Alfre Woodard and appeared in NBC’s The Tempest opposite Golden Globe Award winner Peter Fonda.
She authored the book Partners to History: Martin Luther King, Ralph David Abernathy, and the Civil Rights Movement. This coffee table pictorial of American history was nominated as one of the 2004 “Best Books for Young Adults” by the American Library Association. Attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote the foreword.
Emory University’s Brave New Works Project produced her screenplay, Partners to History. For the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus and National Black Arts Festival at Atlanta’s Symphony Hall, she wrote and starred in the musical, Lushlife—The Music of Billy Strayhorn. For the Harper’s Ferry National Park Service’s Centennial Celebration of the Niagara Movement, she wrote and starred in The Women of Niagara. She wrote and performed John Brown for the University of Utah at Park City.
Abernathy is a founding member of the Board of Trustees of the New Visions Foundation, which created New Roads Schools and several other schools in the Los Angeles area. As a public speaker, she has spoken for the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association, the National Association of Women Judges, Harvard Law School, Pepperdine University, and Morgan State University, to name a few. Her life is profiled in the books Fearless Women and No Mountain High Enough—Secrets of Successful African American Women.
Sources: Donzaleigh.com; Internet Movie Database
Abernathy’s father was Rev. Ralph Abernathy, an influential leader in the civil rights movement. She joined her father and her mother, Juanita Jones Abernathy, and witnessed many significant events of the movement. Her family was very close to that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Abernathy and King children went to school together and integrated Spring Street Elementary School.
Abernathy has an extensive career in film, onstage, and television. She won the Tanne Foundation 2012 Artist Award for her acting work and her script Birmingham Sunday. She starred for four years as a series regular on Lifetime Television's critically acclaimed dramatic series, Any Day Now. She received recognition from film critic Roger Ebert for her performance in the Warner Bros. film Gods and Generals. She starred as the leading lady in the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning HBO film Don King: Only in America. In the HBO Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning Miss Evers’ Boys, she co-starred with Alfre Woodard and appeared in NBC’s The Tempest opposite Golden Globe Award winner Peter Fonda.
She authored the book Partners to History: Martin Luther King, Ralph David Abernathy, and the Civil Rights Movement. This coffee table pictorial of American history was nominated as one of the 2004 “Best Books for Young Adults” by the American Library Association. Attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote the foreword.
Emory University’s Brave New Works Project produced her screenplay, Partners to History. For the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus and National Black Arts Festival at Atlanta’s Symphony Hall, she wrote and starred in the musical, Lushlife—The Music of Billy Strayhorn. For the Harper’s Ferry National Park Service’s Centennial Celebration of the Niagara Movement, she wrote and starred in The Women of Niagara. She wrote and performed John Brown for the University of Utah at Park City.
Abernathy is a founding member of the Board of Trustees of the New Visions Foundation, which created New Roads Schools and several other schools in the Los Angeles area. As a public speaker, she has spoken for the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association, the National Association of Women Judges, Harvard Law School, Pepperdine University, and Morgan State University, to name a few. Her life is profiled in the books Fearless Women and No Mountain High Enough—Secrets of Successful African American Women.
Sources: Donzaleigh.com; Internet Movie Database
DR. ROBIN D.G. KELLEY is an educator, historian, and author. Kelley was born in New York City, New York, and grew up in the Harlem/Washington Heights area. He participated in the Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program and attended P.S. 28 in the Bronx, where students daily sang Lift Every Voice and Sing instead of The Star-Spangled Banner, and a red, black, and green flag, celebrating black liberation, hung in the school auditorium.
Kelley attended California State University, Long Beach, and selected four different majors (industrial arts, business, philosophy, and political science) before settling on history. He completed his degree in three years, earning his BA in 1983. He attended graduate school at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), receiving his master’s degree in African history in 1985 and his doctorate in American history in 1987.
His professional career spans several decades and universities. He began at Southeastern Massachusetts University and then taught at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and the University of Michigan and New York University (NYU). From 2002 to 2003, he served as chair of the history department at NYU. From 2003 to 2006, he was the William B. Ransford Professor of Cultural and Historical Studies at Columbia University, where he helped shape the university’s programs at its Institute for Research in African American Studies. He taught at the University of Southern California from 2006 to 2011. During the 2009-2010 academic year, he became the first African American historian to hold the Harmsworth Chair of American History at Oxford University.
Kelley was appointed the Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA, his alma mater, in the fall of 2011, where he continues to teach and conduct his research. He served as the history department writer-in-residence at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 2013, and he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014.
Kelley’s research has explored the history of social movements in the United States, the African Diaspora, and Africa; Black intellectuals; music and visual culture; Surrealism; and Marxism, among other things. His books include Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination; Yo’ Mama’s DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America, Africa Speaks; America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times; and Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. He has also written over 100 articles in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Nation, Monthly Review, the Voice Literary Supplement, the New York Times Magazine, Code Magazine, Utne Reader, and African Studies Review. He has given numerous lectures at institutions around the world.
His latest works focus on Grace Halsell, a journalist who chemically darkened her skin in 1968 to live out a year as a black woman; Black Bodies Swinging: An American Postmortem, which examines the political economy of premature death and the struggle to preserve Black life; and a general survey of African American history in collaboration with Professor Tera Hunter.
Kelley is resides in Los Angeles with his wife, LisaGay Hamilton.
Sources: UCLA Department of History faculty biography; Blackpast.org
Kelley attended California State University, Long Beach, and selected four different majors (industrial arts, business, philosophy, and political science) before settling on history. He completed his degree in three years, earning his BA in 1983. He attended graduate school at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), receiving his master’s degree in African history in 1985 and his doctorate in American history in 1987.
His professional career spans several decades and universities. He began at Southeastern Massachusetts University and then taught at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and the University of Michigan and New York University (NYU). From 2002 to 2003, he served as chair of the history department at NYU. From 2003 to 2006, he was the William B. Ransford Professor of Cultural and Historical Studies at Columbia University, where he helped shape the university’s programs at its Institute for Research in African American Studies. He taught at the University of Southern California from 2006 to 2011. During the 2009-2010 academic year, he became the first African American historian to hold the Harmsworth Chair of American History at Oxford University.
Kelley was appointed the Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA, his alma mater, in the fall of 2011, where he continues to teach and conduct his research. He served as the history department writer-in-residence at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 2013, and he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014.
Kelley’s research has explored the history of social movements in the United States, the African Diaspora, and Africa; Black intellectuals; music and visual culture; Surrealism; and Marxism, among other things. His books include Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination; Yo’ Mama’s DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America, Africa Speaks; America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times; and Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. He has also written over 100 articles in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Nation, Monthly Review, the Voice Literary Supplement, the New York Times Magazine, Code Magazine, Utne Reader, and African Studies Review. He has given numerous lectures at institutions around the world.
His latest works focus on Grace Halsell, a journalist who chemically darkened her skin in 1968 to live out a year as a black woman; Black Bodies Swinging: An American Postmortem, which examines the political economy of premature death and the struggle to preserve Black life; and a general survey of African American history in collaboration with Professor Tera Hunter.
Kelley is resides in Los Angeles with his wife, LisaGay Hamilton.
Sources: UCLA Department of History faculty biography; Blackpast.org