Publisher Recalled as Man of Honor

The city’s black leadership turned out Friday for a two-hour tribute to Kenneth R. Thomas, remembering the attorney and publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel as a man of integrity and compassion who gave a singular voice to the local African American community.

“He was always there as a friend, a confidant, a resource,” said Democratic Los Angeles Rep. Maxine Waters. “He was always there speaking truth to power.”

She was one of more than 200 elected officials, activists, friends and relatives who filled the First African Methodist Episcopal Church to eulogize Thomas, who died last week of respiratory failure after several stays in the hospital.

They thanked Thomas, 67, for using the weekly newspaper to provide coverage of the African American community that they said they could not find elsewhere.

They spoke of his humor and his infectious laugh, of his willingness to spend half the night assembling a bicycle he gave to a poor child as a Christmas present.

They said he could be counted on in difficult times, that when you got in a fight with him, it remained a principled fight.

“He got respect the old-fashioned way. He earned it,” said attorney Leo Branton.

Those who gathered to honor Thomas ranged from South-Central activist “Sweet” Alice Harris to Reps. Julian C. Dixon (D-Los Angeles) and Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-Carson), from Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks to City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas and Assemblyman Roderick Wright (D-Los Angeles), from Nation of Islam Minister Tony Muhammad to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti.

Celes King III, state chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, afterward characterized the services as “the equivalent of a state funeral.” Much of the leadership of the city’s African American community was there--and with good reason, he said.

“You just could not operate in Los Angeles without recognizing the importance of the Los Angeles Sentinel,” said King, a bail bondsman who got to know Thomas years ago when their offices were across the street on Central Avenue.

He called the Sentinel a community taskmaster that weighed both sides of an issue before taking a position. And he compared it to a letter from home for readers who had moved away but kept subscribing.

One of nearly two dozen people who spoke at the funeral, John Mack of the Los Angeles Urban League described Thomas as “a real supporter of our community.”

“We also knew,” Mack continued, “that under his leadership the Sentinel would tell our story in a way that it often was not told by the mainstream media--because Ken knew us.”

The Sentinel was founded in 1933 by civil rights activist Leon Washington. Thomas assumed control in 1983, modernized the paper and in 1993 moved its offices to Crenshaw Boulevard to follow the westward shift of the city’s African American community.

The paper’s circulation has fallen substantially from its 1960s peak of 56,000 to less than 20,000, and it has been operating on a lean budget. King said Thomas had been thinking of selling it.

On Friday, several speakers urged Thomas’ wife and co-publisher, Jennifer, to carry on in her husband’s absence.

“If the Sentinel were to [fold], it would certainly damage the stability of this community,” King said. “I do not see the Sentinel going out though. . . . It would be my thought that Jennifer can run it. She’s been sitting on the front line for a number of years.”

Thomas is also survived by his daughter, Maria Thomas, and his brother, Charles Wilson. Interment was at Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn Memorial Park.