1980+Summer+Olympics+Leslie+D

 Race Relations in the 80's and 90's  __The 80's__  "The 1980s were riddled with racial incidents." Some were only local and some made national headlines. The troubled decade started with Miami riots; 4 police officers were acquitted after beating a black man to death. The riots left 172 casualties; 9 dead and 163 wounded. There were other violent events after this riot. Events that happened involved hate groups such as neo-Nazis and the KKK. A group of white male teens attacked chased Micheal Griffith, and African American male. He was hit by a motorist and died from the injuries. This set off protest and racial tensions in NY. In 1987 the Ku Klux Klan attacked civil rights activists because they were celebrating the new Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, in Forsyth County, Georgia. In between the years 1986 and 1988 the National Institute Against Prejudice and Violence had listed 163 racially motivate incidents on college campuses across the U.S. __Jesse Jackson__ Reverend and back leader in civil rights battles in the 60's and 70's. He became a vital figure in race relations in the 80's. He ran for president in 1984 and 1988. His campaigns made him a hero to blacks and other colored people and also gained support of many white voters. Jackson made the idea of an African American president in the future reasonable.

 The 90's   //__Rodney King Incident-->__//  March 3, 1991, Rodney King had been drinking. He was speeding down an LA freeway at 117 mph. The police tried to pull him over. At first it didn't work, they called in backup. The backup consisted of a police helicopter and three cop cars. Officers Laurence Powell and Timothy Wind were in one car. Rolando Solano and Theodore Briseno were in the second car, and Seargent Stacey Koon in the third. They finally pulled him over, they suspected he was drinking or on PCP. They tried to subdue him with a taser gun. This didn't work. King became belligerent. The cops began to beat King with metal batons. After the beating Koon went into his car and typed "I haven't beaten anyone this bad in a long time." Another racial message that Koon wrote, shortly before the beating of King, in which he described a scene 'of a domestic disturbance involving African-Americans as right out of "Gorillas in the Mist."'All of this ruckus woke up George Holliday. As fate would have it, George had just bought a new camera. He pointed it out the window and caught the horrible incident on tape. Holliday took his video to an LA news station the next day, and the day after that it was played on CNN. Soon it was everywhere. media type="youtube" key="MJ-2OMIQbq4" height="344" width="425" Rodney King after the beating.

__//**The Trials B**//egins__  Probably the most controversial part of the trial wasn't the trial itself but the fact that the police officer's attorneys tried to move their trial out of Los Angeles County. This may not seem like a big deal but it was switched to Simi Valley. What is so important about Simi Valley?? Simi Valley is basically a conservative predominantly white city. All of the jurors were white and they seemed to be pro-law enforcement. //__Verdict-->__//Wind and Briseno and Koon were acquitted. Powell was charged on one assault charge.

 **//__RIOTS!__//**  Less than three hours later the city was in flames. People went crazy when they heard this miniscule punishment. One of the worst outcomes of the riots was the beating of Reginald Denny. Denny was a white male truck driver. At 6:49 PM that day, Denny was pulled out of his truck by a group of African Americans. He was kicked, beaten by a claw hammer on his head. One man smashed a concrete block on his head and fractured his skull in 91 places. The man who did this also did a "victory dance" when he was pointing out Denny's bloody body on the ground. The riots lasted about 5 or 6 days. Places were set on fire, people died, people were injured. These riots were extremely scary. //**Casualties:**// 54 people dead (mostly Latinos and Koreans), hundreds of people, men and women, injured (60 firefighters), over 1 billion dollars in property damage, 7,000+ people were arrested. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">

<span style="line-height: 19px; font-size: 20.8px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(162, 0, 173); text-align: center; display: block;">__//Effects of Riots//__ <span style="line-height: 31px; font-size: 120%; color: rgb(0, 230, 39); background-color: rgb(162, 0, 173);"> President George Bush promised federal charges on the LAPD officers. This time the jury at the trial was racially mixed, unlike in Simi Valley. Briseno and Wind were again acquitted. Powell and Koon were sentenced to 30 months in a federal correctional camp.

<span style="line-height: 31px; font-size: 208%; background-color: rgb(22, 37, 248); color: rgb(13, 219, 248); text-align: center; display: block;"> Affirmative Action <span style="line-height: 31px; font-size: 132%; color: rgb(255, 164, 228); background-color: rgb(22, 37, 248); font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> This program is supposed to be positive steps to increase the representation of minorities and women in business, employment, and education. It is almost to make it up to minorities and women because in these areas they have been excluded in history. In the 80's affirmative action was watered down a lot. in 1989 there were three Supreme Court cases in which the Court decision was to undercut court-approved affirmative action plans. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 redeclared the Supreme Courts backing and federal backing of the affirmative action plan. A "1995 Supreme Court decision placed limits on the use of race in awarding government contracts." Government programs that were affected by this were later revamped in the late 1990's. This was to include and person that was "socially disadvantaged." California and some other states banned the "use of race- and sex- based preferences in state and local programs." <span style="line-height: 31px; font-size: 132%; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">

<span style="line-height: 31px; font-size: 224.4%; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> __Questions??__
 * Do you agree with the sentence of the LAPD cops? What sentence would you of given them?
 * If you were an African American or a different race then you are now, how do you think you would react to the riots? Would you participate? Why?

<span style="background-color: rgb(70, 224, 251); font-size: 119%; text-align: left; display: block;"> Works Cited <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/affirmative-action/> <http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/lapdaccount.html> <http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0802658.html> <http://texasliberal.wordpress.com/tag/david-duke/> <http://kenoath.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/rking.jpg> <http://www.florida-cracker.org/archives/White_truck_driver_Reginald_Denny.gif> <http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/adec_0001_0009_0/adec_0009_0_03126.html>