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Heroes of Los Angeles
| Article
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10934 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1993 |
3,442 Words |
| Author
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William Gordon
William Gordon, a retired foreign service officer and
newspaper editor, was a Neiman Fellow at Harvard and an Ogden
Reid International Journalism Fellow. He is currently writing
a book on the transformation of the South. |
The Los Angeles riots are infamous for casualties: More than fifty people were murdered and two thousand wounded in that inferno. Had not black residents of riot-torn areas risked their own lives to shield non-black strangers, more would certainly have died. Some of these rescuers are well known; many remain anonymous. The heroism that each of them--and all of them together--demonstrated is breathtaking.
REV. BENNIE NEWTON
"There was something that just kept pushing me from inside," said Rev. Bennie Newton. His voice came over the telephone as if something lay heavily on his mind.
Newton, pastor of Los Angeles' Light and Love Church, runs a carpet-cleaning business to support his ministry. He had finished work on April 29, 1992, and was planning to go to an African Methodist Episcopal church where ministers were meeting to discuss the original acquittal of the police officers who had beaten Rodney King.
"As soon as I reached home, my wife called my attention to the violence she was seeing on television. I knew right then that the church was not the place for me. My place was down there with those young people lashing out in frustration, in confusion, in violence. I could not stand by and tolerate the things they were doing: the beatings, the rock and bottle throwing, the smashing of windows.
"Somehow I felt myself related to this terrible thing that was happening. I myself at one time was one of them, a partner in violence, not as a gang member, but heavily in the underground, making a living hustling drugs. I went to jail for armed robbery, then burglary, and finally drug dealing, but in a way, I was more fortunate than some of them. While in jail, I met a man who helped to turn me around. He was a prison chaplain who reintroduced me to Jesus Christ, and, as a result, my life was turned around. That was in 1978.
Newton believes the roots of the violence that erupted in Los Angeles run much deeper than the feelings touched off by the King verdicts. The violent protests came on the heels of the Latasha Harlens decision in which a Korean grocer was given probation after killing a fifteen-year-old black girl suspected of shoplifting.
There was a pervasive feeling of being disenfranchised from the American ideal. "A segment of the population has
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