(left) Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, (right) Parade founder Larry Grant

The Dream Lives on in This Historic Year of Kingdom Day Parade

By CHICO C. NORWOOD

STAFF WRITER

California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass will serve as the grand marshal and Norris J. Bishton Jr. the celebrity grand marshal for the 25th annual Kingdom Day Parade on Jan. 19 in Los Angeles.

The largest celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in Southern California, the 2.5-mile parade will begin at 11 a.m. at Western Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard. It will proceed west to Crenshaw Boulevard and turn south on Crenshaw onto Vernon Avenue in Leimert Park, where a festival will follow.

Set to air on KABC Television-Channel 7 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., this year’s parade theme is "The Dream Lives On For Today and Tomorrow."

"My 11-year-old great grandson, Neeko Anthony Williams, came up with the theme for this year," said organizer Larry E. Grant, the driving force behind the parade.

Joining Bass and Bishton will be Lt. Gen. David P. Valcourt, this year’s reviewing officer, and 2009 Kingdom Day Parade Queen Wyvetta Taylor.

Other celebrities and officials slated to attend include actress Bern Nadette Stanis of "Good Times" fame; jazz legend Herby Hancock; California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell; members of the Los Angeles City Council; and more.

The parade will include 14 marching bands, 20 drill teams and 15 floats. This year’s major sponsor is the AFL-CIO.

One official who will be conspicuously absent from this year’s parade will be Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who will be attending the presidential inauguration.

"The mayor (will miss) participating in this year’s Kingdom Day Parade," said a spokesperson for the mayor’s office. "It is one of the parades he enjoys the most."

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, another parade regular, will also be absent because of the inauguration, but the supervisor describes the parade as "an appropriate salute to Dr. King."

The first Kingdom Day Parade was held in Los Angeles in 1986, but according to Grant he came up the idea in 1980 when he worked as a president for a commercial bank in San Diego, three years before the passage of federal legislation creating the King Holiday.

Grant said he talked to Coretta Scott King and Christine King Ferris, King’s sister, and told them what his goals and objectives were.

"I told Mrs. King that I had never met her husband, but that while I was serving in Korea during the Korean War I was reading about all of the things he and she were doing, and I admired what he stood for," Grant said.

Grant added that another contributing factor that prompted him to mount a parade as a tribute to King was his belief that the name of Martin Luther King Jr. had lost some of his prominence during that time.

"In 1980, his (King’s) name had dropped down from a 10 to maybe six-and-a-half. I didn’t want it to go any lower," he said. "I wanted it to go back up to a nine or a 10, and that was my purpose in starting the parade."

Grant estimates that about 750,000 people will attend the parade this year, if the weather permits.