Jobs going to people who live near Expo line?

March to Observe King Assassination

March to Observe King Assassination

[HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON — Martin Luther King Jr., center, a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), had planned to lead a “Poor Peoples’ Campaign” in a second march on Washington in June 1968 to draw attention to the problems of economic inequality and poverty in the United States. He was assassinated April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., where he had gone to support striking sanitation workers.]

HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON — Martin Luther King Jr., center, a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), had planned to lead a “Poor Peoples’ Campaign” in a second march on Washington in June 1968 to draw attention to the problems of economic inequality and poverty in the United States. He was assassinated April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., where he had gone to support striking sanitation workers.


April 2, 2009

BY CHICO C. NORWOOD

STAFF WRITER

In observance of the 41st anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference will join community organizations and unions at the “Remembering King, Realizing the Dream” march and rally April 4.

The 3-mile march, which begins at 9 a.m. along Exposition Boulevard, will start at Foshay Learning Center — at 3751 S. Harvard Blvd. — and conclude at Dorsey High School near Farmdale Avenue and Exposition Boulevard.

King was assassinated on the evening of April 4, 1968, as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in downtown Memphis, Tenn.

King had gone to Memphis to support black sanitation workers who went on strike to protest the treatment of black workers. He led a march in support of the workers on March 28. However, violence erupted and King had scheduled another march for April 8. On April 3, the night before his assassination, he delivered his famous “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop” speech.

The march will focus “on the issues Dr. King died for,” said Eric Lee, executive director of SCLC of Greater Los Angeles, adding he expects about 1,000 people to participate.

“There are three basic issues. Number one: quality jobs; second: quality education; and (third): safe neighborhoods. Those are the things we’re focusing on now,” Lee said.

The march will also focus on what some see as the lack of African American construction workers in Los Angeles, he said.

Lee added that organizers chose to target the Expo Rail Line route — an 8.6-mile transportation project under construction that will run from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City along Exposition Boulevard — because it is a “shovel-ready” project and qualifies for funds from the recently passed federal stimulus bill that should bring good, quality jobs to the community.

“They are working on that line now, but you don’t see many black brothers working on that line, so we need to bring attention to that,” Lee said.

Samantha Bricker, chief operating officer of the Exposition Construction Authority, said the authority is doing everything to ensure that jobs are available in the community, and based on the numbers as of March 27, the contractor has met the 30 percent local hiring goal set by the authority.

Bricker said the authority has had several meetings with joint-venture partners to ensure that it aggressively adheres to the requirement that 30 percent of jobs goes to people in the community.

Bricker added that the authority instituted an oversight committee to deal with jobs, streamlined procedures to request local hires from unions, and met with subcontractors to ensure that they are following the local jobs programs.

These actions have resulted in 21 people being hired from the community in the last 30 days, she said on March 27. Bricker added that out of the 45 people who have been hired through the authority’s local jobs program, 45 percent have been African American.

The line will run underground from downtown to the University of Southern California and overhead through portions of the West Los Angeles area. It is designed to run at street-level through South Los Angeles.

The train line will travel about 10 feet from Dorsey High School and within 50 feet of Foshay, a collector site for school buses and where roughly 3,400 students congregate daily.

Lee said the line, as designed, raises concerns about safety.

“It drives through our neighborhood at street-level, putting our children in danger. So, I’m talking about safe neighborhoods. I want the same quality of service that USC and Culver City get,” he said.

In addressing safety, Bricker said the Expo Line is utilizing many of the Pasadena Gold Line’s features, which includes the installation of gates that will preclude cars from driving around them, pedestrian gates, and the installation of fencing in front of Foshay so no children can cross into the right of way.

“The PUC (Public Utilities Commission) has given us approval for all of the crossings except Dorsey, and we are going back to the drawing board on that,” she said. “We believe this will be a safe line and we have taken many steps to ensure the safety of this line.”

With the pending layoff of thousands of teachers by the Los Angeles Unified School District, Lee said the march will also focus attention on the impact these layoffs will have on the South Los Angeles community.

“The layoffs are going to affect teachers in the inner city more than they are in any other place because they are laying off based on seniority and based on credentials,” Lee said. “In the inner-city schools, you have predominately first- and second-year teachers, no credentialed teachers and substitute teachers … and so those are the ones that are going to be laid off … so it will impact our area more than any other area.”

In January, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education authorized the dismissal of almost 3,000 nonpermanent teachers.

LAUSD Board Member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte also could not be reached by press time.

One of the organizations participating in the march is the 5,000-member security officers’ union SEIU-SOULA (Security Officers United In Los Angeles) Local 2006. Faith Culbreath, president of SEIU-SOULA, said it is important that the unions participate in the march and contribute to what that day means.

“Our belief system is that quality jobs are a way to enrich the community,” said Culbreath, who also plans to speak at the event. “We can’t make that argument and not participate in something as important as all of the issues that we want to deal with that day. We want to make sure that those jobs (for Expo Rail) become good jobs that the community can benefit from as well as making sure that the necessary safety precautions are in place. We also want to make sure that education is a key point and key issue with the union.

“All of those different issues that involve community participation, we have to be a part of because they involve us.”

A rally will take place at noon at Dorsey High, where speakers are expected to talk about some of the same issues King fought for.

Speakers will include A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers of Los Angeles, California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, and Marqueece Harris-Dawson, executive director of the Community Coalition in Los Angeles.