Martin Luther King Jr.

Apologies to MLK Jr.

Five Artsy Things to Do This Week, Including Beyonce Singing to the HIV Virus

This weekend, a dinner pays homage to Jonathan Swift, a virus dances to Beyonce and the politically minded star of a soft-core film crosses paths with a pair of kings. 5. Imaginary island dinner In Jonathan Swift's satirical Gulliver's Travels, Lilliput is an island inhabited by tiny people involve ... More >>

Endeavour's Road Trip to California Science Center Expected to Draw Masses to L.A. Streets

You thought Endeavor fever was over once the retired space shuttle hit the ground at LAX following its amazing flyover last month. You're wrong. The fever has only begun. Because L.A. will get an even closer look at the shuttle next week. That's way cool, except that the cops are worried too many ... More >>

Endeavour's Tree-Killing Debut

Steve Soboroff falsely said the chopped trees were dying, sick

Space Shuttle Endeavor's Route Through L.A: LAX to Manchester to Crenshaw to the Science Center (Where It Belongs)

The nation's most glamorous space shuttle is coming home! California Science Center President Jeffrey Rudolph just announced that the Endeavor, a gorgeous Palmdale native with a 78-foot wingspan, will be returning to its area of birth on September 20, barring weather or other issues. To give Endeav ... More >>

Henry Rollins: The Column! Memphis on My Mind

[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Saturday KCRW broadcast.] Sitting on the tour bus, the Bon Jovi Mobile-Def Leppard Express (no offense to either corpora ... More >>

Rad Dads: Five of the Best Fathers In Musical History

Emperor penguin fathers incubate eggs till they finally hatch. ​ Yesterday we brought you a fairly depressing post on dads and how they had screwed up (or alternatively inspired) some of the best known musicians in the world. Today we bring you lighter, more pleasant fare: rad dads! Dads who ... More >>

WTF: On Cesar Chavez Day, Google Honors 200th Birthday of Robert Bunsen

GoogleYes, that somehow spells "Google." Click here for nifty animated version.​Google has gotten pretty crazy with the home-page themes the last year or so -- high point being that Jules Verne steam-punk masterpiece -- and we're mostly supportive of the company's choice honorees. But today i ... More >>

Search For a Hospital For South L.A. Gunshot Victim Ends in Death

Adam GerardA search for a hosptial ended in death.​An errant hunt for a hospital in South L.A. ended in tragedy Sunday as a shooting victim died in the back of a car as his friends tried to summon help. The man was behind the wheel with his friends in the vehicle when someone opened fire at 1 ... More >>

Inside the Nickerson Garden Projects with Rapper Jay Rock: "They can call anyone a terrorist, a gangbanger, and put cameras in your neighborhood."

Sam SlovickJay Rock​Papa Dad didn't make the big Martin Luther King Jr. Parade on MLK Boulevard. He was shot dead on Jan. 3 at 103rd and Crenshaw. Jay Rock and Punch didn't attend, either. It's a turf thing. They want to stay alive. So on the day of the parade, they hung out in Nickerson Garde ... More >>

The Black Thing

What Recession? SoCal's Richest People Measure Their Money In Billions

​Even though the recession allegedly ended in June, 2009, times are still tough. Soup is a staple. Souplantation a luxury. Soup kitchens -- a necessity. But the big wheels keep on turnin'. And the ballers, they keep on ballin'. Southern California's wealthiest people aren't at the tippy top of ... More >>

Seven Nominated For Resurrected Martin Luther King Hospital Board Of Directors

​Seven nominees were forwarded Thursday to become the first board of directors of the soon-to-be rebuilt Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital in Willowbrook. The hospital, which will be staffed by University of California physicians, was scheduled to open in 2013. The Los Angeles County Board of ... More >>

Sinanian Development A Questionable Contractor For L.A. Community College

Los Angeles Mission College​ California Watch, which is a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting, details how a contractor for the Los Angeles Community College District needed to be babysat to meet construction standards and was, according to the president of L.A. City College, doi ... More >>

Cesar Chavez Day: Is This Any Way to Run a Holiday?

I suppose, if Cesar Chavez's birthday is ever to be made into a serious holiday, some bumps are inevitable. Today, Monday, March 30, Los Angeles shut its offices and libraries. Tomorrow, Tuesday, is the state's turn, as the DMV, Superior Courts and other offices and services will be closed on what i ... More >>

It's Alive! King-Harbor Medical Center to Re-open

For the past few days there have promises of news about the re-opening of Martin Luther King-Harbor Medical Center, the sprawling campus near Watts that was once better known as King-Drew Hospital -- a name that became synonymous with administrative incompetence, medical malpractice, racial cronyism ... More >>

Today in Photographs: February 24, 1965

Two Weeks Before Selma: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is welcomed upon his arrival to Southern California at Los Angeles Airport. King was in town for a series of speeches. Photo: L.A. Times/UCLA Collection

KNBC Will Not Broadcast MLK Parade

A spokeswoman for KNBC TV has confirmed to the L.A. Weekly that Channel 4 will not  broadcast live coverage of January 19's annual Kingdom Day Parade -- the first timeChannel 4 has not provided extended coverage since it began live reporting of the parade in 2001. The 23-year-old event, which c ... More >>

TV on the Radio teams with Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O and Nick Zinner at the Wiltern

All photos by Timothy Norris. Click image for entire slideshow. In 1962, at the peak of the Cuban Missile Crisis, James Brown and His Famous Flames stood onstage at Harlem's famed Apollo Theatre and managed to harness the tension that all of America was feeling -- "When will I be blown up?" -- int ... More >>

The Obama Moment: Who Said the Revolution Wouldn't Be Televised?

While McCain tried on the cloak of change and the Clintons avoided admitting defeat, America made history

Coroner Chronicles: Homicides Down

It sure seems like there has been an awful lot of murders in Los Angeles County since January. Every time I look at the newspaper or check out the nightly TV news, someone has been gunned down in a drive by shooting, stabbed to death in an alley, or set on fire. In April, there were at least four ... More >>

Will Latinos Be the Swing Vote in the Tussle Between Parks and Ridley-Thomas?

MBW and MLK Get Greywashed

It's a fact of life for street artists that their work is going to get covered up, torn down, painted over, or if you're Man One, billed for tens of thousands of dollars by Gloria Molina to be sandlbasted off walls. Your adversaries may be fellow painters, the weather, construction workers, or mun ... More >>

Rockie Horoscope

Rotten Regifting

County employees stole gift vouchers from foster kids. They might not be fired.

Fall Harvest

While the media was examining a fake beef, a bounty of music dropped

Music

Fall Harvest While the media was examining a fake beef, a bounty of music dropped

Mavis Staples Joins the Fight

Anger can be power

Escaping With His Life

MLK-Harbor’s got a new name, the nightmare sounds the same

Must See Art

“Other Scenes” group show and “The Void Show” by William Pope.l

What Adults Don't Get

Inside the minds of student marchers

The War Is the Question

ANSWER is not the answer

Not So Rosy, Jim

What Hahn left out of his state-of-the-city message

The Defense Rests – Not in Peace

The legacy of Johnnie Cochran as a rich, famous, undeniably effective and occasionally self-serving black professional will live on

Rockie Horoscope

The People’s Business

Proposition 59 would discourage government secrecy

Rockie Horoscope

JOHN PICONE, Action Figure

Words of Ron Kovic

Left Out

Peace of Me

The Child in Time

The War at Home

War Stories

Why Tracers rings hollow

Trial by Theater

Nick Zagone cross-examines William Kunstler

Creary Steps Down

An embattled medical entrepreneur leaves county service

Summer of Spike

On Lee's First "White" Film, the Elusive "Black" Audience and Other Gray Areas

Lost Soul

A lament for black Los Angeles

Activists Turned Elected Officials

Left Behind

Why American radicals ain’t