Introduction

Rodney King undoubtedly had more than a casual interest in the news that afternoon, for the Simi Valley jury deciding the fate of four white Los Angeles policemen accused of beating him had just reached a verdict. Section 241 prohibits private citizens from conspiring to deny other citizens their rights. After World War I, the fledgling National Association for the Advancement of Colored People lobbied President Warren G. Harding to press Congress to pass a federal antilynching law. During the first half of the twentieth century, whites were accustomed to seeing blacks almost exclusively as shuffling, dim-witted buffoons with few intellectual impulses or moral scruples. In the 1990s, America slyly resurrected the ancient racist stereotypes. Public discourse and policy rapidly degenerated into socially accepted name-calling and scapegoating of blacks. Federal power expanded, and politicians and the public demanded and got more prisons and tougher laws.