April 29 marks the 20-year anniversary of the beginning of the 1992 civil unrest in Los Angeles, which followed the exoneration of Los Angeles police officers who had been videotaped beating African American motorist Rodney King. UCLA has experts.

 

Darnell Hunt, director of UCLA's Bunche Center for African American Studies and a professor of sociology, is an authority on race relations, the media's coverage of race-related issues and the depiction of minorities in film and television. He wrote a book analyzing how the 1992 Los Angeles riots were reported on television and the extent to which audiences of differing ethnic backgrounds perceived bias in that coverage.

Media contacts:

Ricardo Vazquez | 310-206-3986 | rvazquez@support.ucla.edu

Meg Sullivan | 310-825-1046 | msullivan@support.ucla.edu

Paul Ong, a UCLA professor of urban planning, social welfare and Asian American studies,  has studied the short- and long-term economic losses caused by the 1992 riots. He also has done research on income disparities between racial groups and neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

Media contacts:

Ricardo Vazquez | 310-206-3986 | rvazquez@support.ucla.edu

Stanley Paul | 310-206-0159 | paul@publicaffairs.ucla.edu 

 

Mark Sawyer, associate professor of political science and director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics, specializes in racial politics and history.

Media contact:
Meg Sullivan | 310-825-1046 | msullivan@support.ucla.edu 

Kyeyoung Park, an associate professor of anthropology and a scholar with the UCLA Center for Korean studies, specializes in racial tension. She has written extensively about Korean Americans and has published a number of scholarly articles on the 1992 riots.

Media contact:
Meg Sullivan | 310-825-1046 | msullivan@support.ucla.edu 

Franklin D. Gilliam Jr., dean of the UCLA School of Public Affairs and a professor of political science and public policy, studies racial and ethnic politics and the mass media. He is an expert on the Tucker Report, a report issued shortly after the riots by a coalition of local leaders in Los Angeles.

Media contacts:

Stanley Paul | 310-206-0159 | paul@publicaffairs.ucla.edu 

Ricardo Vazquez | 310-206-3986 | rvazquez@support.ucla.edu

 

David Halle, professor of sociology, has written a book that provides a detailed analysis of civil unrest in New York and Los Angeles between 1933 and 2001, including the 1992 L.A. civil unrest.

Media contact:
Meg Sullivan | 310-825-1046 | msullivan@support.ucla.edu 

David Sears, professor of social psychology and political science, has written about the differences between civil unrest in Los Angeles in 1965 and in 1992. Sears has analyzed surveys in which Los Angeles residents described their participation in the events and their attitudes about them.

Media contact:
Meg Sullivan | 310-825-1046 | msullivan@support.ucla.edu