Beth Leder-Pack credits an eighth-grade social studies teacher for turning her on to social justice through the books he assigned, including The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Charles Silberman’s The Crisis in Black and White. “I read these eagerly and my life has never been the same,” said Leder-Pack.

Beth Leder-Pack with her daughter, Anna Pack. She calls mothering “the best work without pay I have ever done.”

The Santa Monica resident has built up an impressive track record of fighting for peace and justice on both the east and west coasts. Among her local accomplishments: she is a founding member of Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism (SMART), the LAANE-initiated community organization that fought to improve wages for Santa Monica hotel workers.

She has served on the Santa Monica Housing Commission, the Steering Committee of Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights and the Board of the Los Angeles Branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Leder-Pack works as public information coordinator for the Santa Monica Rent Control Board.

How did you first get involved with LAANE?

In the late 1990s, LAANE was educating and organizing around issues of worker empowerment, poverty wages and the living wage, and I was very involved with several sympathetic organizations. Reverend Sandie Richards and I worked side by side with [former LAANE organizer] Stephanie Monroe and others for years on numerous projects. One of our first endeavors was the fight to prevent union de-certification at the then Miramar Sheraton. Many of us will never forget the bizarre and macabre Star Wars show that the workers were subjected to while locked in a ballroom by union busters, who donned Darth Vader costumes and doctored a photo of Kurt Peterson [lead organizer for the hotel workers’ union UNITE HERE] to make him look like a Nazi. Both new lows for union busting!

Who are your favorite political leaders?

I love the local yokels on the Santa Monica City Council, particularly Ken Genser. I also appreciate State Senator Sheila Kuehl. When I lived in Princeton, I worked for a wonderful woman named Barbara Boggs Sigmund who was the mayor. She was the daughter of the late Congressman Hale Boggs and Congresswoman Lindsey Boggs who represented New Orleans. She taught me in a very real and practical way that the power of government and its resources could be used to help people.

Who inspired you while growing up? And who
inspires you today?

When I was a child in the '60s, I used to love to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s oratory. I’m not sure I understood all that he was saying but his voice moved me and made me pay attention. To this day, I love the sincere, hard-working local religious leaders, many of whom are involved with CLUE. Their commitment to social justice is exemplary.

Do you come from an activist family?

My maternal great grandparents raised my grandfather and his brother in a mill town in Connecticut that was a hotbed of labor strife. My great-uncle left his position as an NYU Law professor and moved to Russia because he so believed in the ideals of the Russian Revolution. Stalin later murdered him while he was imprisoned in the Gulag, so now a book is being written about him—a person who literally died for his beliefs. I knew nothing about this until recently. My parents never understood where I got my passion for workers' rights and social justice. No doubt it is part of my genetic makeup.