Dr. Steven Pitts has served as Labor Policy Specialist at the UC Berkeley Labor Center since 2001. Steven received his Ph.D. in economics with an emphasis on urban economics from the University of Houston in 1994. His M.A. is also from the University of Houston and he holds an B.A. from Harvard University. For the 15 years prior to his arrival at the Labor Center, Steven taught economics at the Houston Community College and, for five years, he was an adjunct lecturer in the African American Studies Program at the University of Houston. At the Labor Center, Steven focuses on issues of job quality and Black workers. In this arena, he has published reports on employment issues in the Black community, initiated a Black union leadership school, and shaped projects designed to build solidarity between Black and Latino immigrant workers. Currently, a major area work involves providing technical assistance to effort developing Black worker centers around the country.
Our state prisons are dangerously overcrowded, and have been taken over by the federal government. With Washington imploring Californians to come up with a plan for how to reduce our overcrowding problem, a coalition of law enforcement leaders, victims rights groups and Gov. Jerry Brown have crafted Proposition 57.
Dr. Steven Pitts
August 28 of this year marks the 50th anniversary of the famous March on Washington. For many people, the March was simply the site where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. However, the full name of the march was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and the march marked a high point of the modern Civil Rights Movement, after Black communities and their supporters throughout the country boycotted buses, sat-in at lunch counters, rode in Freedom Rides, and marched in the streets. These massive protests were aimed at destroying, once and for all, the era of legal segregation — which was a blot on this country since the end of slavery.
