April 29 · This Day in America
A jury in Simi Valley returns its verdict: not guilty, on nearly every count, for the four officers filmed beating Rodney King for more than a minute as he lay in the street. The video had been on every screen in America for a year. Everyone had seen it. The acquittal lands like a door slamming. Within hours South Central is on fire; the unrest runs six days, more than fifty dead, a city under curfew with the National Guard in the streets. It is the largest American civil disturbance of the century. King himself, weeks later, goes before the cameras and asks the only question that matters: can we all get along? The promise written in 1776 is still an argument, and this is one of its hardest pages — recorded, undeniable, demanding to be reckoned with.
Source: www.britannica.com
Also on this day · 1992
At Florence and Normandie, a truck driver named Reginald Denny is pulled from his cab and beaten nearly to death as a news helicopter films it live. Four strangers watching at home — Bobby Green, Lei Yuille, Titus Murphy, Terri Barnett — get in their cars and drive toward the worst place in the city. They reach him, lift him, and Green drives the rig to the hospital with Denny's blood on the seat. He lives. As the city tore itself apart, four people chose the other thing.
Source: www.npr.org
“Can we all get along?”Rodney King, 1992