Rodney King was beaten and arrested on March 3, 1991. The police pulled him over for a traffic violation and had him chained up and beat him until there really wasn't much left of him. He had to have several surgeries just to make him look close to himself again. With the beating he had to be in a wheelchair and couldn't ever feel the same about himself again. A resident of a nearby apartment captured the beating on videotape and gave it to CNN and other stations, and it was seen beyond the world. The four police men that beat him, who were white, went to trial and were acquitted. Many people were astonished by the verdict. This verdict caused some of the worst riots in the United States since the 1960's. .
In Anna Deavere Smith's, Twilight, she uses short stories to tell about incidents that have happened in Los Angeles. In these stories you hear about beatings, the riots throughout the city, and the buildings being burnt down. On May 3, 1992 there had been fifty-eight deaths, 2,353 injuries, more than 7,000 fire responses, 12,111 arrests, and 3,100 businesses damaged. Smith interviewed a lot of witnesses and people around the Los Angeles area about the Rodney King incident and other riots that broke out around that area. .
Los Angeles had a lot of problems going on right now and they needed some people to get together and fix them. To do this they would have to speak to the community and be heard, stop all the riots, stop the beatings, and stop the fires from happening. They need to get community members together to fight for their community where they lived. To do this the people would have to be powerful, confident, committed, and they"ll have to know how to talk to the people. The three people that I think would be the best at getting together and stopping all this would be Elaine Brown, Maxine Waters, and Daryl Gates. I picked these three because I think they could work well together and they each have their own special talents in getting the people to listen and get their point across.
