Activists hailed for improving neighborhoods

She and her neighbors began organizing with the help of a then-newly formed advisory group called the Empowerment Congress. Eventually, they were able to reduce the number of area liquor stores and crimes.

On Saturday night, 15 years after McClellan began working with the congress, she and six other activists and organizations were honored at a dinner at USC celebrating the group and the people who helped turn a lofty experiment in micro-governance into the prototype for L.A.'s neighborhood councils.

Among those recognized were a Cal State L.A. educator who began a certificate program to train gang-intervention workers and a Jefferson Park couple who rallied residents against dozens of sex offenders living in a halfway house near an elementary school and church.

"It's very, very exciting and deeply encouraging that these people and others continue to commit themselves to making the space they occupy better," said state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles).

He started the Empowerment Congress in 1992, when he was a Los Angeles councilman representing parts of South Los Angeles. The group, formed after the rioting over the Rodney G. King police beating verdict, was seen as a way to spark activism by electing people to local councils and hosting workshops on such topics as community organizing and leadership training.

The group has spread to parts of Ridley-Thomas' Senate district in Hancock Park and Culver City and seeks nonprofit status, said Chairwoman Kara Carlisle, vice president of the city Human Relations Commission.

The congress has no formal authority, but it has become a potent organizing tool for activists such as McClellan, who worked with other members to stop the proliferation of liquor stores around her neighborhood at 91st and San Pedro streets.

Many of the stores had been damaged or burned down during the riots and were seeking to reopen. McClellan, 73, said residents were able to get the attention of city officials and stop owners who had allowed their businesses to become crime magnets from reopening. "We awakened City Hall to the fact that they had a responsibility over land-use authority," she said. "Prior to that, everybody closed their eyes."