With Lucas Museum About to Open, Mellody Hobson Steps Down From LA28 Olympics Board — SkimNews
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- Mellody Hobson resigned from the LA28 Olympics organizing committee board, stating in an email reviewed by LAist that overseeing the Lucas Museum's opening left no time to continue serving.
- The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, co-founded by Hobson and husband George Lucas, opens to the public Tuesday after a Friday gala, making the museum's demands the stated reason for her exit.
- LA28's 35-person board is chaired by Casey Wasserman, who was forced to divest his stake in his management company after the Epstein files revealed his messages with Ghislaine Maxwell.
- The Fair Games Coalition, an activist group, had sought to meet with Hobson over concerns about the Games' effect on South Los Angeles — the same neighborhood that is home to the Lucas Museum.
- The coalition's statement accused Hobson of "choosing the easy way out" rather than using her board seat to back living wages, affordable housing, and immigrant protections for Games workers.
- Rev. Gary Williams, Senior Pastor of St. Mark United Methodist Church and a coalition member, said Hobson could have stood with "our communities" and "defend[ed] immigrant workers" from her board position.
Why it matters: Hobson's exit removes one of LA28's most recognizable Black business leaders at a moment when organizers are already navigating leadership fallout from the Wasserman/Epstein revelations and mounting community pressure over displacement in South Los Angeles — the same neighborhood the Lucas Museum now anchors. The timing hands Hobson a clean break from a Games whose local benefits she is now publicly unwilling to vouch for.
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