Rev. Eric Lee

The Reverend Eric P. Lee is the President and CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference-Los Angeles, the author of the book, “Marriage Equality: Proposition 8, The California Divide,”and the co-producer of a 90-minute documentary on the failure of public education for African American and Latino children entitled, “Who Is Accountable?”

Rev. Eric P. Lee is a founding member of the Stand For Security Coalition, which engaged in a four-year fight to organize African American Security Officers into an SEIU union; a Diversity Task Force member, working to reintegrate African Americans into the hotel and restaurant industries through the union UNITE HERE; founding member of the Alliance for Equal Opportunity in Education, a collaboration of organizations that forced UCLA to change their admissions policies proven to be discriminatory and racist; founding member of the Knowledge Transfer Summit, an African American Leadership Forum; and also a founding member and Chair of the Black Education Task Force, a collaboration of organizations whose mission is to improve the quality of education for Black students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Rev. Lee is also a board member of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace (IJUCP) and Life Member of the New Frontier Democratic Club.

As a civil rights activist, Rev. Lee recently took a stand against California Ballot Initiative Proposition 8 in support of marriage equality and LGBT Rights, believing that anytime one group of people is denied the same rights and privileges of others in society; it is fundamentally a denial of their civil rights.

Rev. Lee has lived in Los Angeles for 22 years but was born and raised in Oakland, California, the heart of social and economic activism on the West Coast. Inspired by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at a young age, Rev. Lee has committed his life to fighting for justice against oppressive forces that continuously hinder people from achieving equality, freedom, justice and dignity, following the guiding principle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

Rev. Lee has a B.S. in Political Economies of Industrial Societies from U.C. Berkeley, a Masters in Pastoral Studies and M. Div. candidate from Azusa Pacific University. Rev. Lee is affiliated with the Black Business Association, Recycling Black Dollars, 100 Black Men of Los Angeles, and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. Rev. Lee has been married 17 years and has three children.