Fifteen Years After the Rodney King Riots

It’s still called a “riot,” an “uprising” and a “civil disturbance,” depending on the point of view. What’s indisputable is that fifty five people died fifteen years ago, thousands were injured and 1,100 buildings were damaged or destroyed. After the National Guard and Marines helped stop the violence, Mayor Tom Bradley asked Olympics Czar Peter Uberroth to form Rebuild Los Angeles, a private group which came to be called RLA. They said the cost of restoring and improving devastated neighborhoods would be six billion dollars.  When the RLA went out of business five years later, it could only count five hundred million. We begin our segment with John “Hope” Bryant, founder of the nonprofit organization “Operation Hope”.

Photo Credit: DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images

Guests:

• John Bryant: Founder and Chairman of Operation Hope
• Constance Rice: Civil rights attorney based in Los Angeles and Co-Director of the Advancement Project in Los Angeles
• Victor Kim: Chairman of the Korean American Coalition, Los Angeles
• Fernando Guerra: Professor of Political Science at Loyola Marymount University and Director of its Center for the Study of Los Angeles

Links:

• Operation Hope
• A Changed City
• Latino, African-American violence on rise since riots
• The L.A. PD Fifteen Years Later
• Problems Persist 15 Years After King Case