King Honored With a Weeklong Focus on Politics

African American elected officials and others on Monday kicked off a week of activities celebrating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. by decrying voting irregularities in the last election and by calling for a surge of political organization in the spirit of the civil rights leader, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and was assassinated four years later.

Citing the voting irregularities that caused an uproar in Florida during the presidential election, community leaders said they would be leading a local voter education campaign in traditionally black precincts. The goal, they said, was to increase participation among African Americans in the upcoming Los Angeles municipal elections.

“We have to step up our efforts once again to make sure our rights are not eroded, that the clock is not turned back,” City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas said during a morning news conference at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza.

Leaders said problems in the November election were not limited to Florida. Voters also experienced delays and confusion at polling places around Los Angeles, they said.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles received dozens of complaints from African American voters, including reports that they had to wait hours for polls to open, that their names were not on precinct lists and that completed ballots were lying on tables, according to interim Executive Director Norman Johnson.

“These infractions are in direct violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and an injustice of voting rights of every American citizen,” Johnson said.

Some local officials were surprised by those charges. Kristin Heffron, elections supervisor for the city clerk, said she had not received any reports of voting irregularities in Los Angeles.

Ridley-Thomas said a voter registration and education campaign will target about 250 predominantly African American precincts in South Los Angeles in anticipation of the April election.

“The work of Martin Luther King is unending,” he said.