ABSTRACT
The history of the Los Angeles region took a new turn on April 29, 1992. On that afternoon, nine jurors—all white, all residing in a white suburban enclave just outside Los Angeles County —acquitted four white officers of the Los Angeles Police Department who had been accused of using excessive force against black motorist Rodney King. Police violence against L.A.’s black and Latino populations was nothing new, but in this case, the beating had been videotaped and then broadcast to the region’s teeming millions time and again. Within hours of the jury’s action, violent protest engulfed the city’s historically African American South Central district; it then quickly spread throughout the region. As the whole world watched, Los Angeles burned.
