By Sonali Kolkatkar for Yes! Media.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the YES! Media-Public News Service Collaboration
Thirty years ago, in the wealthy Southern California city of Simi Valley, a majority-White jury acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of all charges in the videotaped assault of a Black man named Rodney King. The acquittals sparked five days of violence that came to be known as the "1992 L.A. Uprising" (some preferred the term "riots," others "rebellion," or even "civil unrest") during which an estimated 63 people were killed, at least 16 of them Black, 14 Latino, and the rest White, Asian, or unidentified by race. More than 2,000 people were injured.
Thousands of buildings were burned down, and more than $1 billion worth of property was damaged. A massive multitiered army consisting of tens of thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement agents, including from the U.S. Border Patrol, was mobilized to end the rebellion and arrest more than 16,000 people.
It was a stunning chapter in Los Angeles and United States history, one that continues to mark local decision-making around issues of race, policing, inequality, community investment, gentrification, and political representation.
In the months that followed, political commentators on the Right increasingly linked the uprising to a "poverty of values," to quote then-Vice President Dan Quayle. President George H. W. Bush asserted that the actions during the uprising were "purely criminal." Such logic framed the official city, state, and federal government pledges to investigate the causes of the uprising and provide restitution-pledges that either remained unfulfilled or exacerbated existing problems.
Most of the progressive changes in L.A. since 1992 have instead been led by grassroots organizers and community members who have rooted their work in cross-racial solidarity, finding common cause in the abolition of incarceration and police, tackling the housing crisis, uplifting arts and culture, and encouraging civic engagement.
After the Uprising: How Authorities Failed South L.A.
Leslie Cooper Johnson, vice president of organizational development at Community Coalition, explains that her South L.A.-based organization was founded just two years before the uprising. One of its first campaigns was to tackle the heavy concentration of liquor stores, which local residents identified as a major source of crime and other social problems.
"As we were engaging in the campaign ... the civil unrest happened and hundreds of liquor stores were burned down," says Johnson. "And so the campaign then shifted to rebuild South L.A. without liquor stores," she adds.
Former Mayor Jim Hahn remembers South L.A. being the site of "1,100 liquor stores down there, which I think was more than the entire state of Pennsylvania had."
L.A.'s first Black mayor, Tom Bradley, immediately promised to rebuild the devastated parts of the city and announced a public-private partnership that would take the form of a privately funded nonprofit organization called Rebuild L.A. Initially headed by a White corporate executive from neighboring Orange County named Peter Ueberroth, Rebuild L.A. seemed doomed from the start.
Although the organization's leadership was eventually diversified in response to complaints, it never managed to accomplish what Bradley set out to do, either in rebuilding what was destroyed, or in changing police-community relations.
According to an in-depth analysis by Melissa Chadburn writing for Curbed Los Angeles, "The board operated on the assumption that the neighborhoods and its residents were insolvent, inefficient, lazy, corrupt thieves, and that an overreliance on public subsidies had run them into the ground."
Johnson says, "There are still to this day lots in South L.A. that were made vacant during the civil unrest. ... And we still haven't seen the investment, or the development in those spaces."
As to the fundamental issue of police violence, she adds, "We haven't been able to move the needle as much as we would like to."
A Backdrop of Inter-Community Tensions
King's beating ignited a fiery debate about police brutality and race in the early 1990s in the city. Communities of color, especially Black residents, had long charged that police brutality was commonplace, but city officials ignored them. The nearly all-White jury that eventually acquitted King's assailants believed the victim had resisted arrest and that the police had acted reasonably to subdue him.
"What prompted the unrest was just anti-Blackness, to be frank," says Johnson.
Less than two weeks after King was beaten and a year before the uprising, Soon Ja Du, the Korean American owner of Empire Liquor in South L.A., shot and killed a young Black teenager named Latasha Harlins, who Du believed was stealing orange juice. Although convicted of voluntary manslaughter, Du did not serve a prison sentence for the shooting, and anger over the incident simmered within South L.A.'s Black community, where convenience and liquor stores were largely owned and operated by Korean Americans.
When jurors in Simi Valley acquitted King's assailants, hundreds of protesters gathered in the San Fernando Valley, near the site where the assault took place, and marched to the local divisional headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department.
In South L.A., anger spilled out into the streets centered on the corner of Florence and Normandie, an intersection that is now considered "ground zero" of an uprising that went on to spill into neighboring areas. There was a collective rage at the injustice of the acquittals, exacerbated by Black-Korean tensions. Residents set fires, demolished liquor stores, and beat those perceived as outsiders.
Korean American immigrants, many of whom in the early 1990s were relatively recent arrivals to the U.S. and L.A., were deeply impacted by the uprising: 40% of economic losses during the five days of violence were borne by Korean American businesses, according to Edward Chang, a professor of ethnic studies and founding director of the Young Oak Kim Center for Korean American Studies at the University of California, Riverside.
The date was such a momentous incident for the Korean American community that it is still referred to as "Sai-i-gu," which means April 29 in Korean, "just like 9/11," says Chang. He calls it a "watershed event," and "one of the most important historical events for more than 100 years of Korean immigration history."
"They had to leave, they had no choice," says Chang of South L.A.'s Korean American store owners. "Many of them decided to relocate to other cities, such as Las Vegas, Seattle, or even Atlanta." Others who decided to stay restarted their businesses as stores in indoor swap meets.
Although there has been less attention paid to the role of Latinos, Chicanos, and Latin American immigrants, the uprising directly affected them as well. Latinos were among the victims of violence, in addition to comprising 51% of those charged with crimes. Many Latinos also lost businesses in the uprising.
Local Communities and Leaders Are Rebuilding South L.A.
Eunisses Hernandez was only 2 years old when the uprising happened, and in adulthood, she went on to become the co-founder of La Defensa, an abolitionist organization tackling mass incarceration in L.A. To Hernandez, the horror of the '92 uprising highlighted systemic social problems in the city that persist even today, and that are "a constant reminder that not many things have changed," she says.
"We have taken some steps toward progress," Hernandez says, "but the systems that have harmed us-law enforcement, special interest groups, corporations-have continuously beat all the efforts that we have made."
"Paying more people to have guns and badges in our communities doesn't make us safe," she says.
In addition to her work with JusticeLA, which helped to push for the closure of the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail and to stop the expansion of new jails, Hernandez was co-chair of Measure J, a countywide ballot measure passed by voters in November 2020 to divert funding from incarceration into a "care-first-jails-last" approach to social problems.
Activists have identified community-based needs on which the county can spend money freed from the building of jails. Hernandez explains that the ballot measure stipulates moving "10% of locally generated tax dollars into two buckets: community investment, such as youth, minority-owned businesses, and housing, and the second bucket, which is alternatives to incarceration."
Those alternatives include community-based pre-trial services (such as conducting needs-based assessments, trauma support, and alternatives to pre-trial incarceration), mental health services, drug treatment, and job creation. The first year of funding under Measure J has already been distributed toward projects aimed at mental health and youth services that serve primarily "Black trans women, elders, young people, LGBTQ communities," says Hernandez.
Johnson's organization has a similar approach. "We want to see investment in prevention," she says. Today, Community Coalition is working on a campaign with other organizations to explore alternatives to armed police enforcement of traffic stops. What should be a routine interaction often starts with racial profiling of Black and Brown motorists and, far too often, results in violence and even death. But the city's transportation department has been accused both by activists and the City Council of dragging its feet on completing a promised study as a first step toward implementing alternatives to policing in traffic stops.
In the meantime, Community Coalition is building a Center for Community Organizing that, in Johnson's words, will help "train up more organizers from across the country to be well-versed in the strategies and methods that have proven to be successful."
Johnson's definition of rebuilding her city includes expanding access to arts and culture for low-income communities of color. Community Coalition's "cultural organizing" is based on the premise that "art is power." Musical concerts and art exhibits provide opportunities to engage local communities in progressive causes and to encourage civic duties, like registering to vote. Moreover, she explains, "Black and Brown people ... are interested in changing the community around them and the outcomes for their families. We also want joy. We appreciate beauty."
"What does a human being need to thrive and to be happy?" Johnson asks. The answer to that-public safety, affordable housing, living wages, health care, arts and culture-is what she and other local activists are demanding for their community. "It's not so radical, it's not so different than what anyone else would want for their family."
Solidarity Between Communities of Color
While Hernandez sees little progress by city authorities to rebuild South L.A. since 1992, she says, "We have grown in certain areas, like around solidarity between Black, Brown, and Indigenous people of color and other low-income communities." Hernandez, who is running for a seat on the L.A. City Council, cites the strong multiracial coalitions she works with as integral to making progress on such issues as transitioning L.A. County and L.A. away from a carceral system.
Another example of solidarity between racial groups was the evolution of KIWA, a grassroots organization that was launched two months before the uprising as Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates, and years later renamed itself the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance. The organization's new name reflected the growing evolution of an area where Korean Americans had traditionally lived into one that has become increasingly populated by Latinos and other immigrant groups.
According to Chang, Asian Americans have been part of this cross-racial solidarity. "There is a conscious decision made, particularly by the 1.5 and second-generation organizations, that are trying to reach out to other communities," he says, calling younger Korean Americans the "children of Sai-i-gu."
Alongside KIWA, Chang cites Koreatown Youth and Community Center, an organization founded in 1975 to serve primarily new Korean immigrants, as another example of a Korean American-led community group that pivoted to multicultural organizing. According to its website, "After the L.A. civil unrest in 1992, KYCC expanded from being an ethnically focused agency to one that included the surrounding community, aligning with its evolving needs." Another local grassroots group, Korean Resource Center, has similarly evolved, and, according to Chang, its main activities now are centered around "building coalitions with African American and Latino communities."
The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 were a stunning display of cross-racial solidarity in L.A., where young people of color, starkly aware of ongoing systemic racism, marched together against racist police brutality.
"In 1992, South L.A., Koreatown burned down," says Chang. "But in 2020, they made a conscious choice to protest in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and West Hollywood, White affluent neighborhoods." Chang sees that decision as "a signal that racism is part of White America, and White America needs to take ownership and participate in eradicating racism."
Johnson agrees, saying, "The only way that we're going to achieve what we want is together."
Sonali Kolkatkar wrote this article for YES! Magazine.
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By Katie Fleischer for Ms. Media. Broadcast version by Emily Scott for Nebraska News Connection, Reporting for the Ms. Magazine-Public News Service Collaboration.
As many Americans begin to recover physically, socially and financially from the COVID-19 pandemic, it's essential to pay attention to who isn't on the mend. Time and time again, Black women are the last to recover from economic recessions, due to a combination of institutional racism and sexism, and policies that focus on the "average" American (primarily white, middle-class men), instead of taking into account the unique challenges marginalized communities face.
In 2021, the expanded child tax credit (CTC) helped alleviate some of the worst effects of the pandemic on marginalized communities. In order to focus on low-income families, the CTC provided parents $3,000 to $3,600 per child during 2021, split up into six monthly payments and a larger lump sum during tax season this year. For many low-income families, those payments were life-changing. Over the six months of monthly payments, child poverty decreased by an estimated 40%, lifting more than 4 million children out of poverty.
One low-income Black mom, Sequaya, wrote in Ms. how the CTC has impacted her daughter's life:
"The new child tax credit payments have helped me a lot, especially since I've just gone from getting paid every week to having zero income. It's helped to put shoes on my daughter's feet and food in the fridge until my SNAP benefits come through. It's a big relief to wake up and just know, 'Okay, I'm not going to have to borrow money today because I have that extra help coming in."
But after the monthly payments ended in January, low-income Black and Latino families were once again hit the hardest by economic challenges. The childhood poverty rate rose from 12% in December to 17% in January - and soared to moew than 23% for Latino children and 25% for Black children. Guaranteed income recipient Kimberly shared:
"I carry a really heavy load as a single mom. There's no one else - everything is on me. So it helped ease my burden a lot when I started getting the monthly child tax credits last year. Not getting the payments anymore has definitely put a strain on my budget; there are just some things I can't afford without that extra support coming in."
Black families have been hit the hardest in the latest economic crisis, and Black women are more likely to face higher unemployment rates, disproportionate amounts of child care and domestic work and other economic inequities that were exacerbated by the pandemic. For example, Johnnie had to leave her job during the pandemic to care for her daughter - just one of many unique challenges low-income working moms faced:
"During the pandemic, it was really hard for me because it was mandatory for me to go to work, but then my daughter was home from school and I didn't have anyone to be there to help her. I ended up leaving my job because it was not safe and my daughter was not able to continue with school without my help. I didn't have any options, so I had to quit my job to help my baby. I want her to have an education and I couldn't let her fall behind. If I would've had some assistance from my employer, I also wouldn't have been behind on my rent. I really think the government needs to have some kind of program to make sure that essential workers are taken care of."
So, what happens if we intentionally invest in Black women? Janelle Jones, former chief economist of the Department of Labor, tackles this question in her Black Women Best framework, created in 2020 to address the pattern of Black women being left behind by economic recoveries after recessions. When policymakers put Black women first, and prioritize their needs, everyone benefits, according to Jones. Instead of "race- and gender-blind" policies, she advocates for targeted policies that empower marginalized communities and lift up the entire U.S. economy.
The Black Women Best framework has officially entered mainstream political awareness. And it's a particularly salient time to talk economic solutions: In a recent Associated Press poll, more than two-thirds of voters said the economy was their top concern ahead of the November midterm elections.
Most recently, the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls released a comprehensive strategy report that centers Black women in policymaking. In the report, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., along with the rest of her caucus and a Black Women Best Working Group (including Magnolia Mother's Trust's Aisha Nyandoro) laid out a framework for prioritizing the economic success of Black women in order to create a more equitable economy for everyone. They call for specific policies that will create economic opportunities for marginalized communities, like expanding the CTC and the income tax credit, funding community-based maternal health organizations and instituting a federal guaranteed income.
Guaranteed income, an essential strategy for centering Black women and their families, involves consistent payments directed to specific groups (like Black women living in poverty) to address economic inequities. By offering the flexibility and efficiency that come with unrestricted cash, guaranteed income can help create an economy that works for everyone, including Black women.
The Magnolia Mother's Trust (MMT) is a real-world example of how focusing on supporting Black women can have incredible impacts on entire communities. Based in Jackson, Miss., MMT provides Black mothers living in extreme poverty $1,000 per month for a year. Even just a year of receiving consistent payments enabled the recipients to escape cycles of debt and poverty and prioritize the long-term needs of their children.
During the year-long program, the number of mothers who had health-insurance coverage increased 25%, and the number of mothers who had life insurance coverage increased from 50% to 87%. Eighty-eight percent of moms were able to save money for emergencies, compared to 40% at the beginning of the year, and were 27% more likely to seek needed medical care than other moms not receiving guaranteed income. And MMT mothers were 20% more likely to have children performing at or above grade level than other mothers.
Thanks to the monthly payments, MMT moms were able to invest themselves to increase income and opportunities moving forward, setting their families up for future success. Annette, Sabrina and Danel went back to school; Tia moved out of affordable housing; and Ebony started her own nail salon. Chephirah was able to set up a college fund for her daughter, who will be the first person in her family to graduate high school.
For mom of three Roneisha, guaranteed income made her search for a job with a livable wage possible:
"I've worked jobs that are $11 or $12 an hour so it doesn't make sense for me to then have a minimum-wage job when I have the experience of higher-paid positions - even $9 is me humbling myself. I know my worth. The struggle with the job hunt makes the child tax credit payments and the guaranteed income even more important this year as I work to find a job that pays an even semi-livable wage.
"Before I got that call that I was selected to be part of the program, I was really struggling to keep on top of my bills and responsibilities. And now that I'm on this fixed income, it's helped me get really good at managing my money and making sure I'm staying on top of everything and using this opportunity wisely. I'm hopeful that I can only go up from here."
Because guaranteed income involves consistent payments and unrestricted cash, it avoids the paternalistic approach of existing welfare policies that require recipients to use money in specific ways, with lots of confusing bureaucracy and hoops to jump through. And when programs are targeted to low-income Black women, like the Magnolia Mother's Trust, it's not just an economic justice policy, but also a gender-justice and racial-justice one. Guaranteed income uplifts the most disenfranchised Americans, reducing systemic disadvantages they face thanks to an economic system created by and for white men. By putting "Black Women Best" and centering their lived experiences and unique concerns, a federal guaranteed income policy would be transformational for all Americans in poverty - particularly those who face systemic barriers to financial success.
True economic recovery puts cash directly into the hands of people who need it most, empowering marginalized communities and helping struggling families. Only by focusing on the historically least prioritized people - low-income Black women - can the U.S. move towards an economic system that values and assists marginalized communities, instead of leaving them behind after recessions.
Katie Fleischer wrote this article for Ms. Magazine. Katie Fleischer is a recent graduate of Smith College and a Ms. editorial assistant working on the Front and Center series.
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