The Los Angeles Brewing Company in the heart of downtown Los Angeles provided the perfect backdrop for a group of young to middle aged Angelinos to watch President Obama deliver his fifth State of the Union address.

The politically savvy civic minded attendees invited to the State of the Union watch party hosted by the Black Los Angeles Young Democrats mingled around the Brewing Company bar area much like the nations elected representatives and officials on the floor of the House of Representatives chambers of the United States Capitol awaiting the pronouncement and entrance of the President of the United States.

The Black Los Angeles Young Democrats via social media convened a multiethnic gathering to hear the president’s speech that called on Congress to increase the federal minimum wage from the current level of $7.25 up to $9.00 per hour. “Tonight, let’s declare that, in the wealthiest nation on the Earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty.”

The Black Los Angeles Young Democrats according to it’s president, Darryn Harris was conceived in the home of U.S. Representative Karen Bass nearly three years ago. “We learned a lot of folks from our demographic were not interested in being elected officials, but they wanted to contribute some kind of way to the elected experience and be civically engaged.”