Though he was not allowed to leave the house for those four days, D’Artagnan Scorza said he remembers watching flames engulf nearby buildings during the L.A. riots when he was 12 years old.
The words “black building” ““ which were spray-painted on black-owned buildings to prevent them from being set on fire ““ still served as remnants of the riots years later near Scorza’s house on 97th and Vermont.
The tags were meant to prevent the riots from damaging black members of the community, said Scorza, who is the access coordinator for the African Student Union.
“These are people who decided that they were not going to hurt their brothers,” he said. “They were going to fight against an unfair justice system, but they weren’t going to hurt the people in their community.”
The L.A. riots began April 29, 1992, following the acquittal of four LAPD officers accused of using excessive force in the taped beating of Rodney King, a black driver who fled the police.
The riots were sparked by the jury’s decision, said Scorza, who called the riots a “response to the injustice of the justice system.”
But he added that people were also fighting the power structure they believed was holding them down.
“It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, because people were already feeling oppressed and subjugated,” he said. “The Rodney King situation really tipped off something that was already boiling.”
Scorza said he believes the word “uprisings” more accurately describes the riots, because they were in response to a wrongdoing.
“For us it was a civil disobedience that ran on undertones of social injustice and inbred racism,” he said, adding that he identifies with the underlying civil rights cause of the rioters.
Scorza will begin work on his doctorate in education next year, focusing on urban schooling. He said he sees education as the key to progress in the fight against racism.
“What I learned from all of this is education is the key. Education is where we change it all,” he said.
He connected his focus on education to his view of the riots.
“The L.A. uprising didn’t burn down the schools. They burned down liquor stores; they burned down stores that were exploiting people,” he said. “It was a rejection of … a lot of things that plagued the community at the time.”
Michaela Chang, a third-year biochemistry student and president of Hanoolim, a Korean cultural group, has a very different memory of the riots.
Her mother’s clothing store in downtown Los Angeles was looted, she said.
“To have all the stuff gone … it was devastating,” she said.
Her family emigrated from Korea and used all its funds to start the store, she said.
“They didn’t know anyone here, they didn’t have extended family or education, and it was difficult to rebuild,” she said.
Still, Chang said she believes people should remember the riots and their purpose.
“I think it’s important that we understand each other’s cultures and problems,” she said.
In remembering the riots, Scorza stressed the importance of the history leading up to the violence.
“It allows us to tap into the historical context of the Los Angeles area at the time, and the political needs of the people,” he said.
Paul Von Blum, a professor in the Afro-American studies department, said the riots were symptomatic of a larger problem in the U.S.
“What happened in 1992 reflected a kind of deeper racism, economically and politically,” he said.
Remembering and learning about the L.A. riots is important for the upcoming generation of students who were too young to fully understand the riots when they occurred, Von Blum said.
He said remembering the riots gives people an opportunity to “reflect how far we have come and how far we need to go in order to have a racially equal society.”
The city has progressed since the riots, Scorza said, but there is still much work to be done.
Inner-city education is one area still in need of great improvement, he said.
“We have a crisis on our hands,” he said of K-12 education in impoverished areas.
Gang violence also needs to be addressed, said Scorza, who is currently involved in organizing a panel at UCLA to tackle the issue.
Scorza also cited admissions at UCLA as problematic, saying he believes the current standards do not sufficiently take into account the struggles of poor-quality education offered in underprivileged neighborhoods.
Still, he said he remains hopeful.
“I think this generation is really going to do some amazing work,” Scorza said.
Witnessing the riots personally affected him and helped motivate his activism, he said.