Sahra Sulaiman

The Ride of Silence will start at the Benjamin Torres Memorial Site in Gardena (135th and Gramercy), Then, we will head to Watts to the Sylvester Henderson Memorial Site. After that, we will head to Compton to the Ovidio Morales Memorial Site before heading back to Benjamin Torres Memorial Site. We ask that you bring a few candles and arrive 30 minutes before the ride starts so we can leave promptly at 7pm. As we ride across the town, there is no talking on the ride -- pure silence. So, please, leave the chatter for the stops we will make at each site. Also, follow the rules of the Road Captains that will be wearing the Safety Vest.

"We do not believe at this point that there is any indication that this [incident] was race-based,” Capt. II Paul Snell of the LAPD Southwest Division told 1000 attendees at a forum last Tuesday night to address the mistreatment of black students by the LAPD when shutting down their party on May 4th.

If there is a lot in CD 9 that is vacant, foreclosed, abandoned, or in severe disrepair, you can bet either Ana Cubas or Curren Price (especially Price) has found it and stuck a sign on it, like this lot (above) on Broadway and 48th.

Come out for a day along Compton Creek! Join Heal the Bay and several other local community organizations as we celebrate Community around the Creek! Clean up the creek with the Compton High School Recycle Club, fix and ride bikes with the Hub City Teens, Rails to Trails, and the East Side Riders, or learn how to make your garden beautiful with TreePeople and the LEAPS Action Center. Fun for the whole family, and community service hours for those who help clean!

"What you got on you?" the 15 year-old girl says the cops pulled up alongside her asked as she walked along Vermont one night.

I am not a planner.

With each iteration of CicLAvia comes the stress of trying to figure out what new things can be written about it besides, "People rode bikes. And it was good."

When a week starts off with senseless acts of violence like those seen in Boston, it feels a little frivolous to prattle on about less serious subjects. That said, in its defense, CicLAvia is not as frivolous as it might seem on the surface. In the name of fun, health, good neighborships, and more livable cities, with each iteration, it manages to seamlessly bring together more and more people from all races and classes in what can otherwise be a very segregated city.

When is the last time you used a public payphone?

The last time I wrote a full piece on Community Coalition (CoCo) I was at their election-night viewing party last November. The energy in the room was electric -- from the dancing toddlers all the way up to the dancing retirees. The success of their get-out-the-vote and Prop 30 door-knocking campaigns had provided a powerful counterweight to the Times' declaration that “South L.A.’s zeal for politics [had] faded.”