LEIMERT PARK : Malcolm X Festival Now at Leimert Park

The Malcolm X Day Festival has found a new home in Leimert Park.

The event, formerly held at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson, debuts today at Crenshaw Boulevard and Vernon Avenue.

It pays homage to the slain black leader with music, lectures and storytelling. The festival also offers African-themed food and craft vendors and a Malcolm X film festival at Fifth Street Dick’s jazz coffeehouse, which borders the park on 43rd Place.

Community activist Torrence Reese, who organizes the three-year-old festival, said the emphasis on African culture keeps with Malcolm X’s belief that black people of all nationalities must support each other, economically and otherwise. “The festival represents all African people in action,” he said. “African people are an international people who wield influence all over the world.”

The festival thematically echoes FAMLI, Fighters for Afrikan Mental Liberation International, Reese’s nonprofit organization that provides mentors to young people in education and personal development with an emphasis on African cultural traditions and rites of passage.

FAMLI recently sponsored a youth leadership conference at Cal State Dominguez Hills that brought together many of its volunteers, including teachers, community activists and professionals. About 50 FAMLI volunteers stage the Malcolm X Day Festival, co-sponsored by Eso Won Books in Inglewood and Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Braithwaite Burke.

Reese, a Crenshaw resident, said that FAMLI also is sponsoring a Malcolm X scholarship fund for elementary school students who want to attend private black-run institutions such as the Marcus Garvey School and West Boulevard Elementary.

His organization also is lobbying local officials to change the name of Crenshaw to Malcolm X Boulevard from Adams Boulevard south to Florence Avenue.

Reese said that Crenshaw, which runs through the heart of a predominantly African American community, was an obvious choice for the proposed name change.

“Malcolm symbolizes a certain ethnic pride, like Cesar Chavez does for people in East L.A., which is why they changed the name of Brooklyn [Avenue],” he said. “Symbolism, physical representations of who you are, means a lot in terms of self-esteem.”

If the name change is approved, it would mean that Malcolm X Boulevard would cross Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard--a weighty symbol if ever there was one, said Reese.

“They both contributed in meaningful ways to the liberation of people,” he said. “It’s a natural way of them finally coming together.”

The festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Other highlights include a speech by Amen Rahh, an African history professor at Cal State Long Beach. Other Leimert Park businesses are also getting into the act: jazz vocalist Dwight Trible and the group Black Note; performers from the World Stage gallery; Ramsses, an artist who has long had a Degnan Boulevard studio, is erecting a mammoth-size poster of Malcolm X on the music stage, and Kongo Square Gallery is mounting an exhibit of Malcolm X artifacts.

Information: (213) 368-8105.