The Los Angeles Riots Of 1992

Though sparked by the Rodney King verdict, there were many other causes of the riots that erupted on the streets of Los Angeles on April 29, 1992. The Los Angeles riots in 1992 were devastating. The obvious issue portrayed through the media was black versus white. If you did not live in Los Angeles or California chances are you did not hear full coverage of the story, you heard a simple cut and dry portrayal of the events in South Central. If you heard one thing about the riots, it was that there was a man named Rodney King and he was a black male beaten with excessive force by four white Los Angeles police officers on Los Angeles concrete. The media portrayed the riots as black rage on the streets due to the

Through the past centuries many acts of rebellion have occurred. However not many have had such an impact compared to the L.A. riots of May of 1992. After the events that occurred on May of 1992 in Los Angeles, many things changed. The L.A. riots changed race relations between police and the people of Los Angeles for the coming years.

“April 26th, 1992, there was a riot on the streets, tell me where were you!? You were sittin' home watchin' your TV, while I was paticipatin' in some anarchy,” these are the lyrics Sublime uses in their song ‘April 26, 1992’ to describe what happened during the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. “First spot we hit it was my liquor store. I finally got all that alcohol I can't afford. With red lights flashin' time to retire, And then we turned that liquor store into a structure fire,” people ,running through the streets, had no pity when demolishing small businesses and taking what ever they may want from them. The streets, neighborhoods, businesses were destroyed by angry protesters. Their reasons were clear, all they wanted was some

Urban Blacks were also encounter with extreme racial violence in neighborhoods and at work. Different ethnic groups of new immigrants obtained power and used conflict as a strategy of diminishing urban Blacks power level. They began blocking Urban Black workers going to work throughout new immigrant’s neighborhoods. Race riots have played a crucial role in the social establishment of race, prejudice, and discrimination across the United States. Race riots uncovered fundamental tensions in societies experiencing swift technological and economic changes. In 1920, there were many race riots and other violence in many places, such as Red Summer Race Riots of 1919 and the St. Louis Riot of 1917 that took place during the segregation in the South and the Black urban migration to the North. These race riots were response to the reality that Urban Blacks were carrying on a powerful struggle against White supremacy. During race riots, Urban Blacks lived through a renewed flow of riots, massacres, and racial terrorism.

The Chicago race riots of 1919 were one of the darkest moments in our nations history. But something so terrible does not just happen over night, in fact the reason for this riot began with the Great Migration around 1910. The Great Migration was the relocation of more than 6 million African-Americans from the rural south into the urban north. Of those 6 million African-Americans traveling to the north 500,000 of them went to Chicago 's South Side. The African-American population thought they were going to a better situation by escaping the apartheid practices of Jim Crow. However they were taken advantage of and seen as new competition to the northern white population. Nine years later during the summer of 1919, two years after World War I ended, the American society suffered from a racial tension that it has never seen before. The racial tension brewed from the demobilization of black and white

The Watts riots began in the summer of 1965, in a city in Los Angeles called Watts. It all began with the arrest of a young African American by a white California Highway Patrol officer. Now, it was not because he was arrested for already doing something illegal, it was for the way the police officer treated the individual. According to Lacine Holland, an eyewitness to the arrest, the officer “took him and threw him in the car like a bag of laundry and kicked his feet in and slammed the door.” (Flournoy) This caused lots of unrest among the fellow residents of Watts. This was just the beginning of years of pent up oppression for the minorities, which participated in the event. Similarly, in 1992, the Rodney King riots also arose due to the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers for their brutal beating

The neighborhood I have chosen is Watts, California. Before it was known as Watts it was a part of Rancho La Tajuata specializing in livestock grazing and beef production. In the 1870's there was a population boom of White Americans in Southern California. La Tajuata was divided and sold into smaller farms and homes. By the 1900's the development of the railroads brought good things. The town became a city and built it's first station known as Watts Station. In 1926 the city annexed itself to Los Angeles. The railroads brought Mexican and Mexican American workers known as "traqueros" into the community.

Race riots are one of the major news items we hear about via the media when a social crisis occurs. The riots in Baltimore, however, were not so much about race, but more about economic and social class separations. The riots began as a peaceful protest amongst the citizens of Baltimore over the death of one of their own, Freddie Gray. Gray was a young, African-American, from a financially lower class area of Baltimore. Unfortunately, he died while in custody of the Baltimore Police. While this is a tragic loss, he was unlawfully detained by the police (Sarlin, 2015) during this ordeal. On the surface, the riots may appear as a cut-and-dry race provoked, once they are looked into further, that is not necessarily the case.

African Americans in Los Angeles and throughout the United States have experienced racial oppression for centuries. (Background about racial oppression by the LAPD). Rodney King was an African American motorist who inspired positive police reforms after he had a brutal conflict and was beaten by four members of the LAPD. Rodney King’s encounter resulted in a social and legal compromise because the incident made people aware of police brutality, gave African Americans a voice against police abuse, and resulted in reforms to the way that the LAPD responds to communities of color.

0n the 11th of December 2010 tensions grew between two communities. What started out as a brawl fight between two teenage groups with different views ended with a deadly set of attacks destroying the social cohesion of our country. These attacks were the acts of cowards and the Australian public shouldn’t in any way be supportive of something that completely disagrees with the safety of our people. Were these acts right? Did hundreds of people need to be injured? The answer to both these questions are NO. So how did this event that stunned the nation start? Well the cronulla riots weren’t planned and meetings weren’t held for it, however a text message outlining the hatred felt towards the Lebanese community was sent. The message contained phrases such as “lets show these wogs this is our beach and they aren’t welcome

The beating of Rodney King from the Los Angeles Police Department on March 3, 1991 and the Los Angeles riots resulting from the verdict of the police officers on April 29 through May 5, 1992 are events that will never be forgotten. They both evolve around one incident, but there are two sides of ethical deviance: the LAPD and the citizens involved in the L.A. riots. The incident on March 3, 1991 is an event, which the public across the nation has never witnessed. If it weren’t for the random videotaping of the beating that night, society would never know what truly happened to Rodney King. What was even more disturbing is the mentality the LAPD displayed to the public and the details of how this mentality of policing led up to this

In 1965 riots in L.A. occurred after a routine stop by the police involving drunk driving. This stop occurred very close the driver’s residence where massive crowd began to build. When it was all said and done

The history of African-Americans in the United States is full of many periods of achievements, as well as periods of struggle. The Los Angeles riots of 1992 were the result of many years of systematic racism in the United States following the Civil Rights Movement. The beating and unjust trial of Rodney King exposed the unfair and brutal treatment of African Americans by the police. As well as the shooting of 15 year-old Latasha Harlins 2 weeks after the beating of Rodney King to further ignite hatred within African-Americans in Los Angeles. What came forth was a week long riot not only changed Los Angeles, but the United States. That is why the Los Angeles riots was the most devastating, yet consequential, civil uproar in the history of the United States.

As diverse as the city of Los Angeles is, it has a history of racial tension and civil unrest. From 1910, the start of the Mexican Revolution and World War I when President Theodore Roosevelt instituted the “brown scare” (Coerver, 2001), to 1913, when the California Alien Land Act prohibited Japanese immigrants and citizens of Japanese descent from owning land in California, to 1934, when 3000 Chinese immigrants were displaced to make way for Union Station, to 1942, when 110,000 Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps, Los Angeles has historically been the center of racial controversy and tension (“Year by Year,” 1999). In 1943, Los Angeles was also full of young African Americans and Mexican Americans trying to protest the racism in the American culture by expressing themselves with their own music, clothing, culture, and style (Cosgrove, 1985). By the time of the Sleepy Lagoon murder in 1942, the stage had been set for the Zoot Suit Riots that occurred in June 1943. Although the riots only lasted ten days, the ramifications ranged from cultural repression on the part of many Mexican American families, to political activism on the part of others, and the beginning of reform within the Los Angeles Police Department.

The Detroit riots occurred in the summer of 1967. The riot initially started because of race when poor African Americans got kicked out of their houses. They started living on 12th street in Detroit. The riot started there because African Americans were fed up with the way that they were being treated. Many years prior to the riot there were already racial issues. The government made it hard for African Americans to buy houses in the 1950s. During that time, white people were resisting African Americans from moving into Detroit. They were gathering outside of houses owned by African Americans until they would leave. According to Stanford, “I was blissfully unaware of the pervasive racism and resentment that was simmering in my city” (28).