Exclusive: Tavis Smiley and Cornel West to ‘Occupy Los Angeles’ This Weekend

Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West are currently making the media rounds after recently returning from an 18-city, nine-state tour of poverty across America. The end result of that tour is a week-long television series on poverty in America–which airs all next week on PBS. We recently spoke with the pair, who told FishbowlLA they will be in Los Angeles this weekend, speaking and protesting in solidarity with the Occupy Los Angeles movement outside LA City Hall.

“I’m over-elated to see fellow citizens standing up the way they are,” West told FishbowlLA by phone. “There’s no doubt this is a significant movement. And it overlaps fundamentally and unequivocally with the issues we’ve been examining on our poverty tour.”

This weekend should be VERY interesting for the Occupy LA protests, as the third installment of cicLAvia will happen this Sunday. That means hundreds of thousands of people will be passing right by the protest site on bikes and foot. One would imagine more than a few of them will find similar cause with the protesters. Smiley and West’s presence will only help draw more attention.

We’ll be posting our full exclusive interview with Smiley and Dr. West on their new series and the protests tomorrow.

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