2025 CHAMPIONS FOR EQUITY AWARDS: Leadership in Movement

09.23.25

We would like to thank everyone who joined us on September 21 for our 25th anniversary Champions for Equity Awards at The Huntington in Pasadena. The event was a special success thanks to YOU, and our organization continues to thrive for racial justice thanks to your support.

This year marks Catalyst California’s 25th Anniversary, and we joined together for a truly special evening as we honored the past, confronted the present, and got ready to fight like hell for the future. This Champions for Equity Awards was, perhaps more than ever, a community gathering to celebrate those who daily advance racial justice and embody Leadership in Movement. We continue to find joy, inspiration, and strength in one another as we navigate these challenging times.

More than 200 friends joined us for the light dinner, coffee and dessert reception, along with the program honoring our champions for equity Molly Munger and Steve English, our advancer of justice April Verrett, and our transformative partner Angelica Salas.

Mariachi Promesa de México opens

Mariachi Promesa de México, a family of musicians based in Los Angeles, opened the program with soulful classic mariachi songs that evoked the people's struggle, the dignity of workers and the pain of migration. At a time when immigrants in our city face federal persecution, these songs give expression to the hopes and fears of our neighbors in the crosshairs.

Advancing Justice Award winner April Verrett

Joseph Bryant, Executive Vice President at SEIU, accepted the Advancing Justice Award for SEIU President April Verrett, the first Black woman ever to be elected to the post. He spoke both of her vision and the organization's larger mission.

"I want to just go back to that first part," he said, referring to a video that described Verrett's achievements. "To end poverty wage work for all. Just imagine that. Let's all just imagine that for a second .... There's this concept that exists in this country that one job should mean that you should be able to take care of your family. Right?"

As the crowd agreed, Bryant pointed out that is not the reality at the moment. People have to work two or three jobs to try to make ends meet, and often that isn't enough. But Verrett continues to work for that ideal, and she sees it as a real possibility. That is why we honored her on Sunday.

John Kim at the podium in front of a banner announcing him

A message from John Kim

Our President and CEO, John Kim, opened his message with a personal story about having to adjust to the changes he sees his children experiencing, including his daughter's first year in college. Then he pivoted to the changes at hand in our country.

"In many ways, I see all of us struggling to let go of an old world—struggling to let go of that world, the America we had before November 2024," he said. "Intellectually, we understand that we are in a new reality, but emotionally, it's been difficult to let go and take on our new assignment.

"We see, obviously, our rights consistently being salami-sliced away and institutions all around us bending the knee. The daily notifications on our phones of another hard-working neighbor brutally disappeared because of the color of their skin. Our budgets ravaged with healthcare and food supports ripped away from average Americans, all to subsidize tax breaks for the rich, and military occupations of even more American cities."

All this clashes with what appears to look like business as usual in other spaces, he said.

"We see the Dodgers are still playing baseball," Kim said. "TikTok keeps on ticking, and so many of our people walking around their daily business like it was still 2023. It is an odd cognitive dissonance that we now swim in every day."

Kim said it's the kind of contradiction that may lulls us into thinking that shutting our eyes to the injustices we are witnessing will make them all go away.

"That's exactly the kind of old-world thinking that we need to shed," Kim said. "We need to wake up to our new assignments in this new world."

Angélica Salas receives awrd from John Kim

Transformative Partner Award winner Angélica Salas

Angélica Salas, Executive Director at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, won our Transformative Partner Award and delivered a rousing message of resiliency and perseverance in the face of severe pressure from the Trump administration.

As she spoke of witnessing the work of Catalyst California during the pandemic, to document how the loss of life and lack of access to care fell hardest on communities of color and immigrants, she also noted how the image of immigrants changed.

"It was during the pandemic that immigrants were considered essential," she said. "We were essential because we fed you. We were essential because we nursed you. We were essential, because we went to work when nobody else did. We saved America."

Molly Munger and Steve English at a podium, accepting the award

Champions for Equity Award winners Molly Munger and Stephen R. English

Catalyst California co-founders Molly Munger and Stephen R. English, who now sit on the organization's Board of Directors, received the Champions for Equity Award on this 25th anniversary.

As "big case attorneys" both of them led the historic Godinez v. Davis class action of 1999, which resulted in the redirection of almost $1 billion in state bond money for school-building to the Los Angeles region. Eventually, the money paid for 134 new schools

At the time, the Los Angeles Unified School District, which served more than 700,000 students, needed 150 new schools, but it had completed applications for fewer than 10. Meanwhile, the Twain Harte-Long Barn Union Elementary School District in Tuolumne County had received more than $5 million in school construction bond funds since 1989, even as its enrollment of 752 grew by just four students in that period.

The new infusion eventually built 134 new schools in low-income neighborhoods of color in Los Angeles.

As the couple stepped up to receive their award, their gratitude was evident.

"I'm just overwhelmed," English said. "Twenty-five years and counting. Now, that's something to celebrate. I'd like to use this occasion to tell you very briefly why we are so attached to this organization. The one-sentence answer is that we really like what the organization does.

"You should read the mission statement, but in less formal words, this is an organization that brings together on its staff and with its supporters like you, a band of people from a variety of diverse backgrounds and skills, who are all committed to pushing back against injustice."

For her part, Munger expressed her gratitude in terms of the fable of the man who came to town claiming he could make soup out of a stone, and got everyone to contribute to the pot by telling each of them how much better it would be with their addition

"I feel a little bit like the stone in the stone soup of Catalyst California," Munger said. "It's been such a joy to be the wind under the wings of Connie Rice, to be the sidekick to my adorable husband, and to raise up within the organization, he's been there virtually from the beginning, the amazing John Kim.

"I thank you so much for being here. I thank you so much for your support and love. You've all been on the journey with us, whether you know it or not, you're part of Catalyst because you're part of us. Thank you so much."