Echo Park residents will gather Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. at the corner of Echo Park Avenue and Sunset Boulevard.

They'll be marching to Occupy LA downtown, presumably along Sunset Boulevard.

The group is inspired by Art Goldberg, an Echo Park attorney, who's led a group of war demonstrators at that corner for most Fridays over the past eight years.

Goldberg, 70,  also runs the Working People's Law Center of Echo Park, where he offers sliding scale rates to working class clients who can't afford more.

FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT

Golberg was also part of the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley in the 1960s, and did part of his legal education at Howard University, an historically-black college.

He was also at a meeting of the newly-forming Echo Park Progressive Alliance last night.

ECHO PARK PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE FORMING

You could see the excitement in his eyes as he looked across the room of thirty-something attorneys, artists and business owners.

As he told the LA Weekly in 2009, "They look hip. But they don't have any political consciousness, no background of political struggle."

"Luckily they're living in a period of history that will certainly politicize them -- this economic downturn. You have to have crisis before any struggle."

The Alliance will hold its next meeting and mixer on Dec. 1. Keep an eye on the site for details.