Rebecca Rona Tuttle, who owns one of Culver City’s most familiar activist faces, ventured into sensitive new territory where some would have feared to tread at last night’s City Council meeting.
She stepped to the podium to announce a major coming event, sounding pretty formful about the community’s King Day celebration on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 19, at the Senior Center, from noon until 6 o’clock.
Then she detoured.
“Before I launch into the program details,” Ms. Rona Tuttle, formerly of the Anti-Defamation League, said, “I want to speak candidly to everyone who is not African American.
“Obviously I am white. One of the reasons I have served on the Martin Luther King Planning Committee for eight years is that I think it is important to show our African American brothers and sisters all of us care about civil rights.
“All of us realize the importance of the civil rights movement and the diversity of caring residents who want to honor Dr. King.
“Certainly we hope our audience will be diverse. In fact, it usually is.”
Two of the best known personalities at the top of the King Day program will be the keynote speaker, the Rev. James Lawson, an ally of Dr. King, and the panel moderator Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a journalist and leading black communicator in Los Angeles.
But Ms. Rona Tuttle’s plain spoken but measured recruitment of non-black support for King Day was the moment’s headline.
An admirer sitting nearby said in a stage whisper, “I wish there were more people like Rebecca in Culver City.”
