Adrian Dove, longtime organizer of Los Angeles’s Kingdom Day Parade, stands with Mayor Karen Bass during a 2024 event. Dove is still angry over losing the permit to the 2026 parade, but had dropped plans to hold a counter event or disrupt the parade itself.
Courtesy photo
Adrian Dove says he will petition city officials over parade decision
By Stephen Oduntan
Contributing Writer
SOUTH LOS ANGELES — The longtime organizer of the Kingdom Day Parade says he will petition city officials to overturn what he calls a politically tainted decision to strip him of the event’s permit and hand it to Danny Bakewell Sr. of Bakewell Media.
Adrian Dove, 90 — who turns 91 later this year — has led the parade honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday for nearly four decades. He insists the permit process was mishandled by Maria Teresa Sanchez-Gordon, president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, and vows to seek state and city review of what he calls “misconduct and misuse of authority.”
“She first said it was too early, then told me to resubmit, then said it was too late,” Dove said in an interview. “She single-handedly killed the parade.”
As The Wave previously reported, the board during the summer rescinded a permit already issued to Dove’s group, CORE-CA, citing a filing error. Both CORE and Bakewell Media had applied outside the six-month window allowed for so-called First Amendment events. Commission spokesperson Sarah E. Bell said CORE’s permit was “issued in error” and later canceled so both sides could reapply under the municipal code.
Because the revised applications sought the same date and route along Martin Luther King Jr. and Crenshaw boulevards, Sanchez-Gordon designated herself to decide which to approve. She awarded the permit to Bakewell Media, whose corrected filing arrived first.
On Sept. 22, the Police Permit Review Panel voted 4–1 to uphold the denial of CORE’s appeal, effectively ending Dove’s administrative options.
Dove reiterated that the shifting explanations made no sense.
“That’s not how you treat a parade that’s never had violence or problems,” he said. “That’s not how you honor Dr. King.”
In his latest remarks, Dove directly accused Sanchez-Gordon of canceling a scheduled public hearing and replacing it with “a committee of non-commissioners” that affirmed her own decision. He alleged the chair acted “at the bidding” of Bakewell Media and City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who he said has long pressured him to step aside.
“Back in 2012, he told me I was too old to be doing this,” Dove said. “I was in my 70s then. Now I’m 90 and still here.”
He also accused a former aide, Sabra Diogioes-Waddy, who once served as his chief of staff on the parade, of “switching sides” and turning over parade logistics, sponsor lists and route maps to Bakewell Media.
In the lead up to this year’s parade, which was delayed a month by the wildfires that impacted Southern California in January, Dove had announced he would be stepping down from running the parade and turning that job over to Diogioes-Waddy.
“They used inside information — everything from the floats to the porta-potties — to take over what I built,” Dove said.
The Wave has not independently verified those claims.
Attempts to contact Diogioes-Waddy were unsuccessful.
Dove said he confronted Bakewell Sr. two weeks ago at a ceremony naming the intersection of Obama Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard “Bakewell Square,” attended by Mayor Karen Bass.
“I went up to speak with him,” Dove said. “He turned his back.”
Bakewell Media did not respond to multiple phone calls or emails from The Wave in previous reporting. In a past public statement, Bakewell Sr. said, “We are honored to have been selected to organize and produce the 2026 MLK Day Parade by the city of Los Angeles. … We will bring an event that meets the high standards of excellence our community and Dr. King’s legacy deserve.”
Councilwoman Heather Hutt, whose district includes much of the parade route, and Harris-Dawson were not contacted for this story but previously praised Bakewell Media’s record of staging large cultural events. Their offices did not respond to earlier Wave requests for comment.
Dove’s adviser Jamiah Mauri Bey said the dispute is about control of the parade’s “brand,” not paperwork.
“They’re using the permit as a vehicle to steal the brand,” Bey said.
Dove agrees, calling King’s name “the second-strongest brand in America — second only to Jesus Christ.”
He argues the commission’s actions allow others to “steal Dr. King’s brand” by seizing the parade’s institutional identity.
Under Dove’s leadership, the Kingdom Day Parade has grown into what organizers call the nation’s largest and longest-running celebration of King’s birthday, drawing roughly 200,000 attendees and 1 million television viewers. He has produced the parade since the early 1990s.
Last month Dove vowed to stage a civil-disobedience march on the same route if the city refused to restore his permit. He now says that plan has been paused after learning broadcaster ABC, which historically aired his parade, agreed to cover Bakewell Media’s event instead.
“Danny went to ABC and got them to cover his parade,” Dove said. “So I decided forget working around them — but I’m not letting this go.”
Dove added he has tried unsuccessfully to reach Mayor Bass, who twice served as grand marshal of the parade under his tenure. He wants her to “reverse the rescission” and review how the decision was made.
While planning to shift his attention to writing a book, Dove said he will “expose the culprit.”
“I was done wrong,” he said. “But I don’t want to go down in history as a bitter old man. I want Dr. King’s name done right — without my own name being smeared in the process.”
Founded in 1985 and relocated from San Diego to South Los Angeles a few years later, the Kingdom Day Parade has become the city’s most visible annual tribute to King’s legacy, canceled only twice during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the official parade now advancing under Bakewell Media and Dove calling for a review of the commission’s actions, Los Angeles may yet see competing visions of how to honor King’s legacy. Although Dove says he no longer plans a civil-disobedience march, he vows to keep pressing for fairness through official channels.
“We’re going to do what Jesus would do — what Dr. King would do,” he said. “Keep moving forward.”
Stephen Oduntan is a freelance writer for Wave Newspapers.
