'Jane Fonda Day' in Los Angeles celebrates her climate activism
As part of Earth Month, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors proclaimed April 30 'Jane Fonda Day' in recognition of the actress's advocacy of environmental justice.
Fonda, 86, attended the ceremony Tuesday morning, speaking about the changes seen in LA in recent decades due to struggles with pollution, climate change and the resulting effects on plants and animals.
"I was born in 1937, and I grew up in Los Angeles. There was no freeway, there was no smog," Fonda said.
The Academy Award-winning actress is the daughter of Henry Fonda and Frances Ford Seymour, and her decades-long, sometimes controversial history of social activism is as well known as her acting career.
"I became familiar with the skin of California -- the way it really is," she said. "It made me love nature. And then I left California, and I came back decades later, lived in Ocean Park for awhile and the lifeguards were getting cancer, and the songbirds were disappearing... and you couldn't see Catalina anymore."
The motion to create Jane Fonda Day, authored by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, describes Fonda's environmental activism as "an inspiration to all who strive to protect our planet for future generations."
In 2019, Fonda led weekly protests in Washington D.C. dubbed "Fire Drill Fridays" to urge policymakers to take immediate action to tackle the climate change crisis. She was arrested multiple times during those demonstrations.
Her advocacy work dates back to the Civil Rights Movement, when she supported efforts toward racial and gender equality, later backing groups such as the Black Panthers. She has often upheld progressive causes, opposing the U.S. wars in Vietnam and Iraq.
As a staunch critic of the Vietnam War, Fonda visited Hanoi where she was photographed sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun in 1972. The photo drew widespread criticism while Fonda later wrote in her autobiography she was manipulated into the photo-op and never meant to offend U.S. soldiers in the war.
