WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2018
AN AMERICAN PRINT MEDIA PUBLICATION
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS LEADS KINGDOM DAY PARADE AS GRAND MARSHAL LOS ANGELES—Thousands of people cheered and waved along the route of today’s 33rd annual Kingdom Day Parade in South Los Angeles, billed by organizers as the nation’s biggest celebration of the life and legacy of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
T
HE parade began at 10 a.m. Monday at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Western Avenue and culminated with a festival at Leimert Park. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, served as grand marshal of the parade, whose theme, “When They Go Low, We Go High,” was inspired by a comment by thenfirst lady Michelle Obama during a speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention about what she told her daughters about how to deal with “someone who is cruel or acts like a bully.” There were more than 150 units in the parade—floats, bands,
equestrian units and dance and martial arts groups—involving more than 3,000 people, according to Adrian Dove, the parade’s president and CEO. “Every year it gets bigger and stronger,” Dove told ABC7 as he rode in the parade. “And this year because of what’s happening in Washington and a lot of places, we are feeling a resurgence of going back to what it was. I was there working with Dr. King back then, registering voters, and I feel that same mood coming back.” Mayor Eric Garcetti also made reference to the nation’s political climate, expressing outrage over vulgar comments about African
“ ”
This year because of what’s happening in Washington and a lot of places, we are feeling a resurgence of going back to what it was. I was there working with Dr. King back then, registering voters, and I feel that same mood coming back. Adrian Dove nations allegedly made by President Donald Trump during a White House meeting last week. “This is an awesome parade, and it reminds us that it isn’t just about marking history, we’ve got to make history—ending homelessness, standing up against the sort of racism we saw at the highest levels this week, standing up for our immigrants and including
everybody,” Garcetti told Channel 7. The parade included entries marking last month’s 100th anniversary of the birth of Tom Bradley, Los Angeles’ lone black mayor; the upcoming science fantasy adventure film “A Wrinkle in Time”; the Cathedral City High School Ballet n Parade, see page 2
DEMOCRATS IN CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE SAY TRUMP IS RACIST
By Michael R. Blood LOS ANGELES—Candidates seeking to become California’s next governor dueled Saturday over deep partisan differences, with Democrats and Republicans breaking sharply on issues from President Donald Trump to health care. The 90-minute forum at the University of Southern California marked an early skirmish in the contest to replace Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat in his final year in office, while mirroring the bitter party divide seen in Sacramento and across the U.S. That gap was highlighted by a discussion of vulgar remarks by the president on Friday. In an Oval Office meeting with a group of senators, Trump had questioned why the U.S. would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “shithole countries” in Africa as he rejected a bipartisan immigration deal, according to one participant and people briefed on the conversation. Trump has made a partial denial. Asked about the comments, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former state schools superintendent Delaine Easton called Trump a racist. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, remarking on news reports, said he was surprised it took people so long to recognize it. Another Democrat, state Treasurer John Chiang, said he would challenge Trump to follow the state’s example and “California is taking a different pathway.” But the Republicans on stage, businessman John Cox of San Diego and Assemblyman Travis Allen of Huntington Beach, suggested that Democrats were trying to avoid discussing state problems. Cox said candidates should focus n Racist, see page 2
Photo by Richard Shotwell
Octavia Spencer, from left, Taraji P. Henson and Janelle Monae pose in the press room with the award for outstanding motion picture for “Hidden Figures” at the 48th annual NAACP Image Awards
DuVernay, ‘black-ish,’ ‘Power’ win big at NAACP Awards
By Sandy Cohen LOS ANGELES—A jubilant Ava DuVernay was named entertainer of the year at an NAACP Image Awards ceremony that focused on the black
community’s power to create change. DuVernay, best known for directing “Selma” and “A Wrinkle in Time,” lauded other black artists from n Awards, see page 7
LOOKING TO A POSSIBLE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN: BIG DECISIONS AWAIT CONGRESS ON IMMIGRATION
By Andrew Taylor WASHINGTON—Before a potential government shutdown at midnight Friday night, a host of leftover Washington business is bottled up in Congress, waiting on a deal to prevent the deportation of young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children and an agreement on other immigration-related issues, including President Donald Trump’s long-sought U.S.-Mexico border wall. Lawmakers in both major parties are confronted with a consequential week that includes shutdown brinksmanship linked to politically freighted negotiations over immigration. Meanwhile, there are increasingly urgent deadlines for disaster aid and renewal of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program. A government-wide spending deal, billions of dollars in help for hurricaneslammed Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, and health care financing for 9 million children from low-income families have been on hold for weeks, caught first in a crossfire over taxes and now held up in a standoff on immigration. Lawmakers are angry that their pet priorities are stuck and are getting fed up. That rank-and-file anger has GOP leaders in a bind as they work to deliver a stopgap spending bill to stave off a shutdown. They are privately worried that if there’s no breakthrough on immigration, they could blunder their way into a shutdown that all say they want to avoid. Here are the moving parts in Capitol Hill’s high-wire week: ___ IMMIGRATION Trump has dismissed a bipartisan deal by n Shutdown, see page 7
Black Leaders Say Trump Presidency at Odds With Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy By Errin Haines Whack The first Martin Luther King Jr. holiday of Donald Trump’s presidency is taking place amid a racial firestorm of Trump’s own making. In the same week that he honored King by making a national park out of the ground where King was born and preached until his death, Trump denigrated practically the entire African diaspora, and left many
Americans headed into the civil rights icon’s birthday convinced that the leader of their country is a racist. For African-Americans in particular, this latest insult from Trump felt like whiplash. Barely a year ago, America’s first black president, Barack Obama, marked his final King Day in office with his usual community service; now, his successor is presiding over a racial backlash the country has hardly seen
in more than a generation. Trump has denied being racist, labeling himself the “least racist person there is” during his 2016 campaign. Some of his actions leading up to this year’s federal holiday honoring King’s birth seemed to be an attempt to live up to that. He began last week by designating the historic site around King’s Atlanta birth home as a national
park. By week’s end, Trump was signing a King holiday proclamation with the martyred activist’s nephew at his side. But in between, the president sat in a White House meeting on immigration policy and denigrated much of the African diaspora as “shithole countries” while expressing a preference for immigrants from Norway, a majority white nation. n Legacy, see page 3