L.A. Riots Memories

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Tomorrow marks the 19th anniversary of the 1992 riots -- South Los Angeles erupted after the acquittal of white officers on trial for brutally beating black motorist Rodney King. For the next four days the whole city was caught up in fear, violence and devastation. Residents of South Los Angeles lived it.

Duane Earl and his brother are the owners of Earlz Grill in South Los Angeles. The brothers started with a hot dog stand and were getting ready to open their first brick and mortar restaurant. Duane talks about the Grill's first location when the riots hit.

"People don't understand what a sacrifice is," said Earl. "And every day for two and a half years, my brother put that restaurant together."

When the restaurant was half way done, the riots hit.

"We watched them loot down the block, the fire started coming towards us," Earl continued. "In fact, the fire hit our building, we were in a building with firefighters. That's the wildest thing, I remember being across the street from my brother, we're both on the phone, calling my mom and my grandmother in New York and we're both crying, telling them the city is blazing, we're watching our hard earned thing go up in smoke, and we're watching our own people burn it down. Burn the son of a gun down so they can collect insurance, not realizing that they're going to **** everyone else up in the process. This is what we had to deal with. And when they finally saved it and the place was gutted, what insurance?"

The brothers had to start from scratch.

More than 50 were killed in the violence and more than 25-hundred injured... and there was an estimated one-billion dollars in property damages. Sika owns a store in Leimert Park that sells jewelry and African clothing. The block is filled with black-owned businesses. He remembers the long days spent protecting his shop.

"We moved beds, we had chairs and TV and stereo sets that we moved right here to the middle of the street and we slept here. We was here around the clock," said Sika. "What was that? Four or five days, six days? every store owner was here. We took up the street."

Sika wasn't scared. He says there was nothing to be afraid of.

"No body messed with us, I mean, we see people starting to do certain things and we went and talked to them. And then when they did set afire to the beauty salon over there, we moved everything out of the stores, we thought maybe the fire would spread. We took everything out of the stores and put them in the street. So we had to stand guard over it. You couldn't drive down the street. It almost got to be fun. It brought about so much camaraderie in the neighborhood, that when it was over with, it was kind of boring," he laughed. "You just got used to it, you know, if it's like regular routine, I guess it's like shooting a movie and then its over with and its like, what am I going to do now? Is it time for vacation or something?"

Sandi Beamon of Inglewood didn't feel the same sense of community.
"I just had a daughter that was 11 months old," said Beamon. "I had to literally becoming a hostage of my own home and not come out for that entire week. I tried to go to the store at one point and was threatened by members of the community, asking what color I was, and what race I was and where did I live and how dare I come out at a time when they were taking over. And 'they' meaning who? I don't know. I don't know who they was. And I held tight to my little one, as I was standing there in the store, just praying to God that nothing would happen to me as I left out of the store and got in my car. And these guys followed me to my car. And tell me that I just better understand what time it was, and I need to go home and get in the house, they would let me go this time, but if they saw me they would come back to kill me."

She was interviewed by Sarah Golden who also spoke with Sika. Duane Earl of Earlz Grill was interviewed by Rebecca Shoenkopf. You can listen to more memories and see photos of the Los Angeles riots on Intersections South LA at www.intersectionssouthla.org.