MLK Parade 2006 in LA

The LA Times says that Martin Luther King Day is the only holiday that has a lot of activism instead of picnics and barbecue for the other holidays. That’s true, and more so this year at the Martin Luther King Parade in Los Angles. Monday we saw a noticeable increase in activist’s participation in the parade than from the previous years. More union members, it seems, were brandishing signs and placards with anti war messages. Also in the parade was a contingent of about 50 members and supporters of Veterans for Peace who were carrying coffins draped in U.S. flags and signs with anti-war messages.

Among the most famous personalities against the war were Congress Woman Maxine Waters and John Parker from the Workers World Party, both walking all the way from the beginning to the end.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was cheered many times when he started to speak to the crowd through his microphone while ridding in a superb parade vehicle, a classic car from the 1950’s.

On the dark side, they were a large display of military power, and also as usual the presence of an unnecessary large number of police officers who kept their time harassing mostly young African American males. At the end of the parade, the Police followed a group of about one hundred into Martin Luther King Park then they ask shamelessly the youth to leave the park. Complaining but fearing arrest, they all left for Jefferson Park where they gathered again.

It seems that this year there were less major corporations sponsoring the parade, but more small corporations with their floats sometimes missing crucial elements, like the name, the picture, or an item related to the slain civil right leader.

It’s sad to see this year again that the parade was more a market place for corporations, and a hunting ground for the military, craving for young people to enlist, than a truth commemoration for the achievement of the greatest leader in U.S. history.