The Beating And The Aftermath

It’s hard to believe that two decades have passed since the beating of Rodney King and the verdict that resulted in the most violent episode of social unrest in U.S. history, which unfolded before our eyes. Maybe I should qualify that to say in modern times, because there are many instances of unrest and riots that, in my opinion, were worst.

Nonetheless, the crime in this case occurred when four white policemen were accused of delivering a vicious beating unto Mr. King, a year before, during a traffic stop. The criminals were acquitted and the city of LA exploded. Lest be mindful that the beating was captured on videotaped and the whole world saw what African Americans have alleged for years.

Since America has been America it has faced challenges as it relates to racial tension that has divided blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, and nearly all non-whites. Is it getting better? I would say no and I would use the current case of Trayvon Martin as an example of the disparity of justice as an example. It has been so bad so long, with respect to racial profiling, it's hard to see the difference, particularly in many African American communities. Let me add this is not unlike what happens in many African American communities.

I’m sure if we could put ourselves in the shoes of King, now 47, who must continue to live in the shadow of the beating he took from the four cops in 1991. This event fueled an already heated racial tension that existed in Southern California, particularly between the African American community and the Los Angeles Police Department.

To be sure, King is still pained by the incident and his life since has not been easy. He has had several run ins with the law, battled depression, alcohol and drug abuse, as seen on VH1's Celebrity Rehab in 2008. He made a statement during an interview where he said, "I wouldn't want to be in black skin, 30, 40, 50 years ago. I wouldn't want to undergo what they went through." King went on to say the incident “exposed the LAPD for what it was, and it exposed some of the courts and brought attention to people's minds to what was so unfair.”

The uprising killed 55 people, destroyed 1,573 businesses and cost $1 billion in the initial three days, eclipsing the damage done in the Watts Riot of 1965. Like Watts, the hardest hit area was South Central, home to much of the city's African American population. I suppose the only positive to come out of this was that in 1992, 60% of the LAPD was white - now it is 60% minority.

On the other hand there are still the institutional issues as they were in 1992. For instance, the graduation rate, according to most recent Los Angeles Unified School District statistics is 56%, well below the national average of 75%, meaning jobs in California's increasingly technological and skilled trades-based economy are less accessible to those without at least a high school diploma.

I wanted to mention this huge event because with what may happen in the Trayvon Martin case we may see history repeat itself, as history has been known to do. God forbid Trayvon’s assassin should get off, found not guilty, like the murderers of Emmett Till and as we saw with these cop who beat King nearly to death.

Just saying, and that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…

RELIVE HISTORY AND SEE THE INSANITY 

A Killing Season

There have been many atrocities involving the story of the African American struggle. One of the most horrifying of such was a dreadful wave of lynching and anti-Negro violence that permeated the very fiber of America during the year 1919.

Lynching was so pervasive that James Weldon Johnson labeled it the "Red Summer”. During this year, race riots started by whites, inflicted devastation upon blacks across the nation. Let’s be clear there were many race riots but the difference this time was that blacks fought back!

Red Summer refers to the summer and fall of 1919, in which race riots exploded in a number of cities in both the North and South. The three most violent episodes occurred in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Elaine, Arkansas. On the afternoon of July 27, 1919, a stone throwing melee between blacks and whites began after a black youth mistakenly swam into territory claimed by whites off the 29th Street beach in Chicago. Amidst the mayhem, Eugene Williams, a black youth, drowned.

When a white police officer refused to arrest the white men involved in the death, and instead arrested a black man, racial tensions escalated. Fighting broke out between gangs and mobs of both races with violence escalating with each incident, and for 13 days Chicago was in a state of turmoil. By the time the riot ended, 23 blacks and 15 whites were dead, 537 injured, and 1,000 black families were left homeless. The Chicago riot was part of a national racial frenzy of clashes, massacres, and lynching’s. All of the incidents were initiated by whites.

In Washington, D.C., from July 19 to 23, four whites and two blacks were killed; whites were astonished that blacks dared to fight back. The NEW YORK TIMES lamented the new black militancy: "There had been no trouble with the Negro before the war when most admitted the superiority of the white race."

A "Southern black woman," as she identified herself, wrote a letter to THE CRISIS, praising blacks for fighting back. "The Washington riot gave me a thrill that comes once in a life time ... at last our men had stood up like men. ... I stood up alone in my room ... and exclaimed aloud, 'Oh I thank God, thank God.' The pent up horror, grief and humiliation of a life time -- half a century -- was being stripped from me."

From October 1-3, a race war exploded in Phillips County, Arkansas. On the night of September 30, a small group of black men and women were gathering a rural church to organize a sharecroppers' and tenant farmers' union -- the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America. When two white law enforcement officers arrived at the church, one later claiming they were looking for a bootlegger, shots were exchanged. One white officer was killed and the other wounded.

As word of the shootings spread throughout the county, the local sheriff sent out a call for men "to hunt Mr. Nigger in his lair." The call went out to Mississippi to come to the aid of white men in Phillips County. Hundreds of armed men jumped into trains, trucks, and cars and, crossing into Arkansas, fired out of windows at every black they saw. Some said that if it was black and moving, it was target practice.

Frank Moore, one of the farmers at the church, saw the massacre as it unfolded: "The whites sent word that they was comin down here and kill every nigger they found. There were 300 or 400 more white men with guns, shooting and killing women and children." Soldiers from the United States Army eventually restored order, although some claimed the military participated in the killings. By the time the shooting ended, 25 blacks and five whites were listed as officially dead.

Many blacks believed that perhaps as many as 200 were killed, their bodies dumped in the Mississippi River or left to rot in the canebrake. The white establishment charged that blacks had formed a secret conspiracy to rise up and overthrow the white planters, take their land and rape their women. No evidence was ever produced to substantiate the charge.

This inhumane treatment was so blatant that civic and religious organizations began to speak out against lawless groups. One of the main opponents of lynching was the Federated Black Catholics under the guidance of Thomas Wyatt Turner. Turner was a supporter of civil rights and a devout Catholic born in Charles County, Maryland, Turner was a graduate of Howard University. Before he accepted the teaching position at Howard, he was the secretary of Baltimore's NAACP. However, his voice was not heard.

I could go on until all of the ink in the world is gone but what would be the point! Because history has recorded that the American Dream was more like a nightmare for people of color and minorities. So I will stop here and simply ask that you look into your soul and ask it: If you or I can see history lived which is known to be true – changed? How can you, we, or anyone believe anything history has ever told us?

And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective!

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"Just a Season"
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