Join us for a conversation that reconsiders where the story of American liberty is made and explores how Californians have helped shape the foundations of the nation’s modern political life. While the story of American democracy is often told as a movement from East to West, the history of California—and especially Los Angeles—reveals a more complex exchange of ideas, struggles, and innovations.

From the late nineteenth century through the twentieth, Angelenos helped pioneer new approaches to civic participation, civil rights, and local governance that resonated far beyond the region. Bringing firsthand experience and historical perspective, panelists Michael Woo and Zev Yaroslavsky reflect on the city’s evolving political landscape and its influence on the broader American experiment. The conversation considers how Los Angeles became an unexpected trailblazer in the ongoing pursuit of freedom, civic participation, and democratic possibility.

Panelists

• Michael Woo, former Los Angeles City Councilmember and President of the 1871 Memorial Project
• Zev Yaroslavsky, former Los Angeles County Supervisor and Director of the Los Angeles Initiative, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs

Discover more exhibition programs
Explore programs connected to Life, Liberty, and Los Angeles and other exhibitions across the museum—each offering a different point of entry into the histories, ideas, and communities that shape the American West. https://theautry.org/events/inspired-galleries

This program is part of the LA2026 Project, which brings together members of the public and humanities scholars for eighteen conversations at six partnering institutions in the Los Angeles region. Each discussion frames conversations about the anniversary of 1776 from the perspective of California and the West, encouraging public discussion about national identities, relationships between regional and national narratives, participation in democracy, and human relationships to the land.

The EMSI LA2026 project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities