On the next few episodes of History of the ’90s, host Kathy Kenzora will look back at the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the various factors that led to one of the largest and most violent cases of civil unrest in United States history.
The acquittal of four police officers in connection with the brutal videotaped beating of Rodney King wasn’t the only reason people went into the streets of South L.A. looting and burning buildings over a six-day period in April 1992.
The Black community was also reeling from a judge’s decision not to send a Korean shopkeeper to jail in connection with the shooting death of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins. Plus, South L.A., which was 50 per cent Black in the early ’90s, was hit hard by unemployment, gang violence and the crack epidemic.
As you’ll hear in this episode, the conditions were ripe for unrest.
A note on sources:
The information in this podcast about the timeline of events at the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues was based on reporting from a 1998 article by the Washington Post.
Contact:
Twitter: @1990shistory
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Email: 90s@curiouscast.ca
Guests:
Brenda Stevenson, professor of African-American studies at UCLA, author of The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender and the Origins of the L.A. Riots
Ryan Gattis, author of All Involved
Twitter: @ryan_Gattis
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