CALL TO ACTION!!! PLUM COMMITTEE MEETING KNIGHT RESIDENCE

UPDATE: On Tuesday, November 1, 2022 the City Council's Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) committee tabled the pending Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM) nomination to a further date. Prior to the hearing, Councilmember Cedillo made an eleventh-hour request to reduce the nomination to a site-only designation. On the day of the meeting, a motion was met with strong pushback from community members who gave passionate and emotional testimony to the significance of Kight's home as a historic resource. 

We need your help as owners continue to oppose the HCM and want to redevelop this property. 

You can help by ONE: submitting written comments online, including your name, email, and reference Council File Number: 20-1341; and TWO: attending the next Morris Kight HCM hearing (date TBD). We will update this page with more information once the hearing is scheduled. (May 16, 2023) 

Why the Morris Kight Residence Matters:

Morris Kight (1919-2003) is considered one of the founding fathers of the American LGBTQ civil rights movement. His Los Angeles residence, a modest Craftsman home in the Westlake neighborhood and a hub of LGBTQ social activity in the twentieth century helped form the backdrop to his work as an activist and gay rights pioneer.

Born and raised in Texas, Kight moved to Los Angeles in 1958, where he would co-found several prominent LGBTQ rights organizations.

The most notable of these is the Committee for Homosexual Freedom, which became the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in 1969. At the time of the GLF's founding in Los Angeles, two other chapters of the GLF were flourishing in Berkeley and New York.

Kight also spearheaded the creation of the Gay Community Services Center, today known as the Los Angeles LGBT Center. 

In 1970, Kight co-founded the Christopher Street West gay pride parade in Los Angeles, the first gay pride parade and festival in the world, and still a model for pride events across the globe.