20 Years Later: The Ambiguous Legacies of the Los Angeles Riots

In March 1991 a bystander with a Sony Handycam videotaped a group of LAPD officers beating a motorist named Rodney King; a year later, when a suburban jury acquitted the police of charges of excessive force, South Central L.A. erupted in riots that lasted for days. Historian Josh Sides assesses the public and private efforts to repair the physical and psychic damage; 20 years later South Los Angeles has changed remarkably — though as Sides notes, some of the deepest changes have resulted less from official initiatives than from the "demographic dynamism" of the city. READ MORE