Gov. Jerry Brown is in Los Angeles today, slated to speak at the memorial service there for a longtime civil rights and religious leader, the Rt. Rev. Hamel Hartford Brookins.

Brookins, 86, was a bishop of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church and a mentor to former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and others. He died May 22.

“The son of Mississippi sharecroppers, Brookins rose to prominence in the 1960s and ’70s as an articulate, self-assured champion of black political empowerment,” this Los Angeles Times obituary says.

The Democratic governor was also among the many political figures

Article source: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/06/am-alert-jerry-brown-to-speak-los-angeles-hamel-hartford-brookins-memorial.html