Day 112

February 24, 2020

Colonel Leon H. Washington Park. Set for day two of shooting. The park is named after the founder of the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper (FKA the Eastside Shopper) in 1933. Colonel Washington was a journalist and an activist in the African-American community. While he ran the paper he built a readership of over 50,000. He started the “Don’t Spend Where You Can’t Work” campaign during the Depression and published articles to bring to light discrimination in Los Angeles.

The park is also home to The Drew League. Established in 1973, the league’s goal was to help the neighborhood children build meaningful relations on the court that would grow into similar relationships out in the neighborhood. For nearly fifty years the league has grown, and today it is a gathering place for professional basketball players to compete against the neighborhood’s best athletes. And the competition is tough.