Pasadena’s United Against Hate Week Kickoff Set for Oct. 18 at the Western Justice Center

The Pasadena Human Relations Commission plans to open the city’s observance of United Against Hate Week with a launch event from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18, at the Western Justice Center, 55 S. Grand Ave., according to Councilmember Steve Madison’s District 6 newsletter, which said more details about the program would be announced later. The newsletter attributed the item to the commission.

United Against Hate Week runs Oct. 18–24 this year, according to the National Civic League, which coordinates the national campaign. The week calls for seven days of local civic action against hate and bias; it grew out of a 2017 poster campaign by Bay Area cities responding to white supremacist rallies in Berkeley and San Francisco, according to a Los Angeles County Office of Education resolution recognizing the week.

Pasadena has marked the week since 2022 through a partnership between the Western Justice Center and the Human Relations Commission, organized in conjunction with LA vs. Hate, a program of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, according to Collaborate PASadena, one of the organizing partners. The local organizing committee also includes the Center for Restorative Justice and the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the group says.

Last year’s observance included a “Walk to Freedom” on Oct. 25 from Day One’s offices on North Euclid Avenue to City Hall, organized by the Western Justice Center with the commission and a coalition that included the NAACP Pasadena Branch, the San Gabriel Valley Jewish Federation and Collaborate PASadena, and the commission formally accepted the city’s United Against Hate Week proclamation on Oct. 7, 2025. In 2024 the city’s Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department, the commission, the Western Justice Center and the Pasadena Unified School District staged a Pasadena vs. Hate Resource Fair at the Maxwell House on Sept. 22.

Co-sponsoring the October anti-hate week is one of the priorities in the commission’s fiscal 2026-2027 work plan, which also calls for collecting data on hate incidents and hate crimes from the Pasadena Police Department. Los Angeles County recorded 1,350 hate crimes in 2023, a 45% increase over 2022 and the highest total since the county began tracking such incidents in 1980, according to the county Commission on Human Relations’ 2023 Hate Crime Report.

Information on the national campaign is at https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.unitedagainsthateweek.org&source=gmail&ust=1788604917620000&sa=E. Commission agendas and contacts are at https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.cityofpasadena.net/commissions/agendas/&source=gmail&ust=1788604917620000&sa=E or (626) 744-7311.