about. >> or around. i had never heard it said and it sounded stupid. violence at nbc. i mean. what is internet anyway? >> a lot of people use it and communicate. they can communicate with nbc. can you explain what internet is, allison? we have to ask yourselves, when is the last time we talked about race with somebody of another race? if the answer is never, with we are part of the problem. >> you can have a black person killed with a video. and this is what you will get. >> this is a revolution. >> we have to increase the

peace. >> should people be frightened? >> people should wake up. it's 1991. >> we have talked at each other and about each other a long time. it is high time we started talking with each other. >> no justice, no peace. >> can't we all get along?

in about 20 minutes from now, david dinkins is scheduled to take a public oath of office and become new york city's next mayor and the first african american mayor. >> i intend to be the mayor of all the people of new york. >> david being inaugurated on new year's day 1990 is an auspicious start to the decade. and the culmination of some of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s . people are seeing tangible benefits of that struggle. >> a grandson of slaves was worn? as the nation's first elected black governor. >> i was born in the 30s so you know i didn't think nothing like that was going to happen. >> after we saw hundreds of black elected officials, the reality set in that we made a

step, but we had not gotten all the way to where we wanted. >> in last year's mayoral cam payne, dinkins ran as the candidate to heal deep divisions. a situation is becoming highly volatile. >> an angry crowd roamed through the crown heights section of brooklyn demanding justice after a motorist, a hasidic man hit and killed two black children. >> there was rioting. blacks attacking jews and i got the blame for that. >> we have to increase the peace. >> when mayor dinkins went to crown heights to ease the tensions, he was booed and forced to retreat. >> i think too often, many

black elected officials have conned americans telling them what they want to hear. it is not cool. >> there was no one truth. the blacks called it a murder, the jews called it an accident. there were two completely different reality. >> david dinkins was trying to please everybody. he was trying to prove he wasn't just a black mayor. >> your mayor works for you. you have commissioner brown working for you guys. >> similar tensions are simmering in cities across america. legions of young black men and women, unemployed and losing hope believe they have been abandoned by the larger society and they are angry. >> new york city is symptomatic of what's happening in the nation in the early 1990s and what one writer describes as a season of racial tension. you have african americans dealing with stifling poverty

and inequality and police injustice perpetrated against communities of color. rodney king in 1991 exposed some of that when his beating was captured on camera. >> in los angeles, outrage grows over a video tape of police beating an unarmed motorist. >> an explosive case. >> beating a man they had just pulled over. >> an amateur camera man recorded it all. >> we here in los angeles were struck by the maliciousness of what we saw. the inhumane sense of this person struggling on the ground, being battered repeatedly. >> this is 1991 and things have not changed. if you're black and mexican, you'll have a problem with law enforcement. >> city officials received thousands of angry phone calls from across the united states. >> when the rodney king video hit, everybody in the hood was like finally, they caught them. what will happen now now that they have shown a lynching on

tv? >> multiple officers from multiple agencies witnessed this and not one single officer that night ever reported that anything had gone wrong. that suggests there is a deeper problem. >> another widely publicized incident captured on video tape has become a source of ethnic tensions. >> two weeks after the rodney king video goes worldwide, a young girl walks into a korean american owned grocery store to get a bottle of grocery juice. >> the owner thought the 15- year-old was going to steal some orange juice, there was a struggle. harlan turned to leave the score. do shot her in the back of the head. >> that it should come so quickly after king and both should be on video had the sense for many people of saying now we finally have evidence of what we have been complaining about. >> a jury convicted do of

voluntary manslaughter. judge joyce carlan gave him parole and community service. >> got away with murder. >> you can have a black person killed with a video and eyewitnesses and this is what you will get. >> stop killing our children. >> the case has become a symbol of tensions between african americans and koreans who have become successful merchants in the poor neighborhoods. >> south los angeles had been abandoned by a lot of commercial entities. there were not many markets so liquor stores became the stand in. the place you would go for cigarettes, diaper, milk, whatever. >> why don't you open a market we can use? >> go back to korea. >> rapper ice cube continues to draw heavy fire for the lyrics on his new album death certificate. he threatens to burn down the

stores of korean grocers if they don't treat black people with more. >> there was no way for us to really talk back. >> we will burn your store back to a crisp then see you. >> if the truth hurts, say ouch. but i ain't sorry about it at all. (vo) get verizon business unlimited from the network businesses rely on. like manny. event planning with our best plan ever. (manny) yeah, that's what i do. (vo) with 5g ultra wideband in many more cities, you get up to 10 times the speed at no extra cost. get verizon business unlimited from the network businesses rely on.

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supreme court justice thurgood marshall has announced he will retire. it is the end of an era.

>> thurgood marshall was the lawyer on brown v . the board of education. on the supreme court to give a voice to black americans. >> i kept my word to the american people and to the senate by picking the best man for the job on the merits. the fact he is minority, so much the better. >> judge, what do you say to the critics saying the only reason you are picked is because you are black? >> i think a lot worse things have been said. i disagree with that, but i'll have to live with it. >> the senate will vote on the supreme court nomination of clarence thomas. but some are worried about a threat of sexual harassment from years ago. >> they were going to judge him on his conservative views. his race was not going to be an issue. but the anita hill allegations brought race back into the picture. >> the senate judiciary committee is meeting to hear evidence on sexual harassment charges made against judge clarence thomas.

>> he spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals. >> this seemingly personal matter is being aired out in front of this jury of all white men and created quite a spectacle. >> this is a circus. from my standpoint as a black american, as far as i'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching. >> clarence thomas decided to fight back by evoking one of the most painful elements of black history which was designed to point out the burden of being black. >> the final count was 52 to 48. the closest successful nomination vote in supreme court history. >> no matter how painful the process has been, this is the time for healing in our country. >> it is not exactly a rage, but it is definitely a much noted trend. the whole new wave of black films with black stars by black

directors. right now in new york, a new black film is being premiered just about every week. among those drawing impressive reviews is boys in the hood. directed by 23-year-old john singleton. >> i really wanted to make a film that would voice what i had seen growing up as a young black man in los angeles. los angeles police department. they were kind of an occupying force. >> defense attorneys claiming they couldn't get a fair trial in los angeles got the case moved to more conservative neighboring ventura county. >> it felt like these officers were being sent to a very friendly venue. and certainly, a more friendly venue than a downtown la jury would have been. >> the defense picked apart a video tape and every image was turned around to say see where king is threatening the police

officers and it is not about race but king resisting. >> you didn't see him have a weapon. >> yes. >> what kind of weapon did he have? >> it was his body. >> we are prepared to take care of any eventuality no matter what it might be. >> the clerk will read the verdicts. >> we the jury find the defendant not guilty. >> this was a stunning verdict. i don't think many people were expecting this. >> it struck us all with great disgust because we thought that by those pictures, even fair minded people would know the injustice of what happened to him. >> the most spontaneous reaction came from boys in the hood director john singleton. >> it's like a bomb. >> they let these people off from attempted murder of rodney king. i told everybody, listen, it is

going to go now. >> no justice, no peace. >> crowd began to gather. it began to turn more and more violent. parker center has a glass entrance and people were throwing rocks at the doors. i was inside with the police commissioners and they were searching for gates. gates was unreachable because he was at a fundraiser. >> i was trying to protect the building and my wife called and said are you watching television? they are beating the guy up in the middle of florence of normandy. >> terrible pictures. >> in our living rooms we saw in realtime. smashed with a big cement block. >> no police presence. >> it sent a message to everybody else that this is a free for all. no police. nobody who is going to stop you. and so, people poured into the street.

and the violence spread from that. >> where is the lapd? what's going on here? it explodes and continues to explode. that's what happened here. >> martin luther king jr. said riots are the language of the unheard. they said look, this is how america is going to hear you. we will take this thing over. we will drive this nation in a direction we need it to go in. >> dusk to dawn city wide curfew is in effect in los angeles. >> i didn't realize personally the extent of the damage until i went home the next morning and i couldn't believe how many buildings were burned. it was going on all over the

city. >> of 7,000 korean owned businesses, 1700 were ruined. >> can't people realize what they are doing is wrong? this is not the way to overcome racism. >> people remember the latasha harlan shooting. and say you are the ones who come into our community and don't give anything back to the community. those korean stores were targeted. and in some cases, those shop owners were targeted. >> most koreans came in the late 70s and early 80s . in korea, they all have to go through military service so they just became weekend commandos. >> these korean shop owners defended their property with bullets. >> all the gun shops in korea town lent out all their guns and they just mobilized. and then, the young guys, they told us to just patrol the streets. we can make our parents proud or stick up for our community. >> it turned into the biggest rebellion riot in the history of the united states of america

since the civil war. >> for the first time since the verdict, the world heard from rodney king. >> people, i just want to say, you know. can we all get along? >> rodney king is not a public spokesman, an activist. he was the victim of a police beating and didn't know what to say. what is there to say? i'm still alive. that's what you should say. but he didn't say that. he said can't we all get along? and a lot of people didn't want to get along. >> no justice, no peace. hpv vaccination - a type of cancer prevention against certain hpv-related cancers, can start then too. for most, hpv clears on its own. but for others, it can cause certain cancers later in life. you're welcome! now, as the "dad cab", it's my cue to help protect them. embrace this phase. help protect them in the next.

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and switch to xfinity mobile. the death toll is now up to 43 equaling the record set by the detroit riots of 1967. now this city try to recover. >> grabbed a broom just to sweep because of the ashes were everywhere. and then coming at me was channel 9. they said what are you doing? i said i'm sweeping. i don't know what else to do. half an hour later, there were three, five, 12 people with brooms. well, we saw you on the news and came out to help you. by 6:00 in the afternoon, there were thousands of people. >> as armed national guard troops deployed, these people

armed themselves with trash bags and brooms to begin the overwhelming job to clean up what is left of their burnout neighborhood. >> we need to get the youth to understand there is alternatives to venting your frustration. >> took three days to destroy and three day to clean it up. i was very proud. >> i am african american first. i am black first. >> my survival means your total destruction, then so be it. you really feel that? >> yes i feel that way. only because i feel america has given black people no other choice. >> sister soldier is a rapper. an activist. and she does not sanitize her message for the public. >> we all have to come together and find some common ground. >> how do you find common ground in an all white united

states senate? >> a number of her statements are held up of an example of black hatred of white people. >> sister soldier said if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people? >> in running for office, the democratic candidate bill clinton decided to seize on that particular sentence. and pull it out of context. >> if you took the words white and black and reversed them, you might think david duke was giving that speech. >> bill clinton denounced sister soldier in front of jesse jackson so he is signaling to whites that he is not a typical liberal. >> i think that bill clinton is like a lot of white politicians. they eat soul food, party with black women. play the saxophone. but when it comes to domestic and foreign policy, they make the same decisions that are destructive to african people

in this country and throughout the world. >> the next president of the united states of america. bill clinton. >> clinton is the first democrat to be elected since 1976. he is a governor from a southern state. and, he was representing himself as someone who could speak to the african american community. >> our diversity can be a source of strength in a world that is ever smaller. where everyone counts. and everyone is a part of america's family. >> six women will serve in the u.s. senate. including the first black woman. >> most black women credit anita hill. they say the rage they felt at her treatment by the senate judiciary committee fueled their campaigns. >> it was a hopeful time when women began seizing some of these offices. it sensitized women and minorities to the fact that our voices have to be heard and the

real way to have them be heard is to be holding the reins of power. >> $2.4 million. great box office for a wednesday. that is what opening crowds paid out to see malcolm x. >> it is hard to miss the phenomenon called spike lee. >> spike lee is a black man who has reached the top of white culture. and, he has done it his way. >> malcolm x is really impressive achievement in terms of not being one of these small independent emergent new voices connected to hip hop. but instead, a big budget three hour 20 minute epic about an important african american figure. >> i asked him if he was worried that the movie would not appeal to a broad audience. >> it is good enough, people are going to come. but the minute a black artist starts thinking crossover, they start diluting the work. watering it down and the work

suffers. >> when we look at john singleton and spikes all across the board, this became the era where we took charge of our own culture. our own cultural icons and telling our stories, expressing music and theater and cinema. >> in los angeles, one person is trying to bring about an understanding that tore that city apart a little more than a year ago. her name is anna smith. she has taken the riot and turned into theater. >> twilight bay. >> twilight is one of 26 people she becomes in this one woman tour deforce. >> they said we were looting in korea town. that was the mexicans. not us. >> i thought of the los angeles riots as the explosion of a trunk or a house that exploded. and everything is all over the place. and then as an artist, it's this incredible opportunity to put it together in a way that makes sense. >> there are so many different

kinds of us of americans now. >> when you have a volatile period of racial strife in america, there is always a big pop culture surge of black voices. i'm hopeful and heartened and flattered that people want to come see this which is about race. it is the uncomfortableness of being different. makes me happy. here's to real flavors... real meals. real good. all of knorr's high quality pasta and rice sides are now made with no artificial flavors or preservatives. knorr. taste for good. ♪

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good morning everyone, homicide detectives in los angeles are telling the associated press that oj simpson ice arrest is imminent in connection with the killings of his ex-wife and friend. >> murder charges filed against oj simpson for the deaths of nicole brown simpson and ronald lyle goldman. as of this time, approximately 3:00 p.m., no one knows where he is. >> we thought that the evidence was overwhelming. there was no doubt. this is the man who committed the crime. >> you are looking at a live picture now. >> oj was a guy who felt like he was above race. he became the exceptional

hollywood negro. had a blond wife. lived in brentwood. >> oj with a gun pointed at his own head. >> if the person had murdered two white people was a street thug, it would have been no big case but it was an icon. you don't want to believe this kind of a person would have done this. >> how do you plead to counts one and two? >> absolutely not guilty. >> legal analysts say his demeanor was assembled by his legal team including johnny cochran. >> he had spent decades exposing police misconduct in the treatment of african americans. >> the eyes of the world are focused here in los angeles. where the much anticipated murder trial of oj simpson is

about to begin. >> pictures of the death scene. bloody footprints. the knit cap. one of the bloody gloves. >> the fact blood mysteriously awe peers on vital pieces of evidence, devastating evidence of something far more sinister. >> the notion that the los angeles police department would unfairly treat an african american suspect in 1994 was far from out landish and no one knew that better than johnny cochran. >> can you describe the appearance of the glove, sir? >> announcer: a dark leather glove. it appeared moist or sticky. >> we know early on that the detective had issues in his background. >> and you say on your oath that you have not spoken about black people in the past ten years? >> that's what i'm saying sir. >> the oj simpson trial is in chaos. >> the firm tapes, a ticking time bomb in the trial blew up today. >> it becomes evident late in

the trial that mark furman has worked with an la screen writer and made tapes of what police life is like. >> the defense offered 41 examples of fur man using the word [bleep]. something he swore he has noted done in the last ten year. >> their claim he planted the bloody glove found. >> would you resume the witness stand please? >> was the testimony that you gave at the preliminary hearing in this case completely truthful? >> i wish to assert my fifth amendment privilege. >> the defense tried successfully to turn that case into a referendum on mark furman in particular and the lapd in general. >> absolutely no one would have predicted it after a trial that has lasted three quarters of the year. the jury and the oj simpson trial has taken less than four

hours to reach a verdict. >> would you stand and face the jury? >> most people can tell you where they were sitting when that verdict came down. >> we the jury find the defendant not guilty of the crime of murder. in violation of penal code section 187. upon nicole brown simpson. >> the question wasn't where oj was guilty or innocent. the question was whether the jury had been convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the prosecution has sustained its burden. and in the end, they decided they had not. >> nobody is celebrating the fact that this horrific crime occurred. they are celebrating what feels like pay back for rodney king. for a system and conditions

that have just ignored them. >> every one of us has been made aware of a simple truth. white americans and black americans often see the same world and drastically different ways. waysthat go beyond and beneath the simpson trial and its aftermath which brought these perceptions so starkly into the open. almost 30 years ago, dr. martin luther king took his last march in memphis. well today's march is about black men taking renewed responsibility for themselves, their families, and their communities. >> welcome to the million man march. >> there are big goings on in the nation's capitol. this is an enormous crowd of

black american men and boys and some women. >> i remember the power of stepping out of the dc metro and seeing the sea of faces of color on the national mall. >> the million man march was called for by the nation of islam. >> the reason this was called was for atonement and reconciliation. >> he has always been a controversial figure because of his antisemitic utteranss but it became bigger than him. >> this became the first mass expression we could make together that we would need to be regarded and respected and heal this racial breach. >> we aren't all drug dealers and you know, we can come together and have a positive message. >> when you start standing with

our mothers. when you stick it out with your families. when you start mentoring our young. then, we can build a new nation of strong people. >> i had to get out of that time bomb mentality. i think that the march gave me a sense of hope that things could get better. [whistling]

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it was a show of force on the steps of new york city hall. off duty cops banded together in protest. fed up and angry with a city they claimed doesn't back them up. >> david dinkins off the police because he talks about civilian review boards. we see predominantly white police officers. screening over racial slurs at the black mayor. >> some people have an absence

of confidence in the police department. >> the reason the morale of the police department is so low is one reason and one reason alone. david dinkins. >> it was easy to blame david dinkins for things that were not his fault and along comes giuliani with his pro cop stance. there was an audience for this sort of message as there often is. >> today the new york police are told to take a different tact. to clean up the neighborhood aggressively. to visibly improve the quality of life as a first step in crime reduction. >> it's the broken windows theory. this idea there were small quality of life crimes and if you could stop that, you would set up a very peaceful and orderly society. that really becomes a process of racial profiling that disproportionately targeted young black men as potential criminals. >> they have more foot posts out there. more police officers walking

the beat. >> hi, how are you? >> if i were to put police on every corner in america, of course crime will go down. but the question is at what cost? for many black people, it was a sense of community. a sense of dignity. a sense of respect from law enforcement. >> with the majority of americans worrying about their quality of life in california, the easy going tolerance of earlier decades has frayed. >> at the ballot box, what we see in california which is sort of the leading edge of this trend is a whole number of different types of initiatives that are meant to further contain communities of color. >> tens of thousands of californians marched through downtown los angeles today to demonstrate against proposition 187. which would bar illegal immigrants from public schools, non-emergency medical services an welfare roles. >> we are as american as everyone else. and we deserve an education . >> opponents say it plays on voter prejudice against

latinos. but supporters say it will staunch the flow of illegal immigrants. >> pete wilson is pinning his reelection hopes on anti- immigrant sentiment. >> we will take back california for the working tax paying families of this state. >> the main undercurrent of all the different measures being held from 1994 onward dealt with fear. fear of the other. of an expanding demographic. >> it is that kind of incident that has generated so much heat in california. a controversial ballot measure to end preference for minorities. >> you begin to see all the policies and bills against affirmative action. all of it feels like secret agent talk in black people. >> there have been 376 murders

so far this year. >> one he plans to address with new proposals next month. >> you gave me this job and we are making progress on the things you hired me to do. but unless we deal with the ravages of crime and drug and violence, none of the other things we seek to do will ever take us where we need to go. >> the crime bill became lock them up. throw the key away. three strikes you're out. and then in their zest to govern, it was an overreach. in the bill, the penalties for powdered cocaine and crack were different. >> powder cocaine, a drug of choice among mostly middle and upper class abusers. crack cocaine, a cheaper faster high for its mostly poor users. chemically, they are virtually identical, but not in federal court. an arrest for five grams of crack brings a mandatory five years in federal prison. but you get just the same five

year sentence for 500 grams of powder cocaine. the law was designed to help clean up crack infested communities but instead has become another wedge between blacks and whites. >> all these absurd laws are putting people in prison for lengthy terms and we all know the imbalances in the way people are imprisoned. who gets incarcerated. and it is always people of color. suddenly, you have this massive group of primarily black men going to prison. >> president clinton had a political strategy of saying we are going to be tough on crime. but, we are going to be socially receptive. and, the democratic party started moving to the right. playing the racial political lines. >> welfare as we know it is now history. president clinton signed the legislation that ends a government commitment made 61 years ago, federal aid to the nation's poorest. >> what ultimately happens is the unintended consequences. they didn't take into account

child care. if you are going to put people back to, who. who will take care of the children left home? it was these questions that exposed the weakness of the bill. >> i tried to go to work but i didn't have child care. i was in school. i was doing something. not just sitting around doing nothing. >> so you wanted to work. >> of course. >> welfare becomes racialized in a way in which we begin to hear all of these stereo types trotted out about the lazy dependent welfare queens. >> there are more white people on welfare at that time than black people but the sense again that welfare is helping those people to hand out and we can't do that. so bill clinton turned op his base. >> 14 million americans, mainly black in the cities, white elsewhere, will be hit. more than a million children will be thrown into poverty. >> there is a significant story of people fallen below the radar screen. and people care less and less

about what might happen to those people. >> clinton is an extraordinarily complicated figure and his biggest legacies, the crime bill and welfare reform, are going to be disproportionately impacting low-income african american communities. do i think he was actively trying to do this? no. it was politically expedient and helps him win re-election. >> we have committed this night to continuing our journey, to give the young people and those all across america the america they deserve.

do you know? do you know? do you know? >> these nike sneaker commercials are an example of just how strong black selling power is. ♪ if i could be like mike ♪ >> black culture had always been influential. but culturally speaking, the '90s are really the decade when black culture is solidified as the mainstream of american culture. and you have this sharp rise in black superstars making movies and music, from will smith to jay-z. >> how does it feel to be number one? >> beautiful thing. number one in the whole country, that's a major accomplishment. >> there was a lot of people experiencing success visibly. >> the most prestigious award in literature has gone to american novelist toni morrison, the nobel prize. >> i think i'm the first

african-american to win the nobel prize. >> you are. >> and that is astonishing. >> suddenly people we looked to as heroes, suddenly america was looking at them too. this represents a new understanding of diversity, a new understanding of american possibility. >> everybody wanted to be like us. everybody wanted to talk like us. everybody wanted to see our movies, they wanted to listen to our music, they wanted to wear our clothes. and some people feel like we lost that war, the revolution in the early '60s and the '70s, but we won the war of pop culture in the '90s. >> every city has cases of police brutality. but few are as brutal as the alleged attack against haitian immigrant abner luima. >> nearly 2,000 demonstrators marched on the 70th precinct yesterday, where luima alleged police beat him and sodomized him. the attack comes at a time when new york has gained new respect for its plummeting crime rate. but complaints about police misconduct are soaring.

>> the plus tick cups of coffeered the shell casings of 41 bullets fired by police after they confronted amadou diallo, a 22-year-old west african immigrant, who may have been reaching for his keys. >> in many ways the '90s ends the way it starts, with a spotlight on violence against black bodies by law enforcement. abner louima, amadou diallo, two people who did not deserve to be on the wrong side of state violence were. >> justice! no peace! justice! no peace! >> in our community we live with that fear it could be one of our brothers or one of our nephews or one of our sons, i wish everyone could understand. >> diallo has become a martyr to some. a symbol of a price paid in new york's war against crime. rudolph giuliani has countered the outrage with carefully selected statistics. >> shots fired by police officers has decreased by 50%. >> and steadfast support for the nypd. >> the new york city police department is restrained --

>> substantially more restrained -- >> it's among the most restrained police departments in the country. >> many people thought, even though times had progressed, in other ways some of the images were not that different than images people might have associated with the '50s and '60s. >> we thought maybe we'd gotten past all this stuff, but it keeps happening. and it was a reminder that while the '90s represent so much growth, so much progress, we still had so much further to go. >> in every society there is a fragile balance between order and freedom. in new york these days, a number of blacks and hispanics in particular feel that it's their freedom which has been sacrificed to achieve order. they are the ones being stopped, frisked, sometimes harassed for no other reason they are black or brown and therefore suspect. >> although i would not call the '90s the best of times or the worst of times, i see it as two train tracks that dangerously went further and further apart. >> it's the time that america lost its naivety and took the

veil off the underlying problems in american society. >> i marched in '63. i marched in '95. i'm going to keep on marching for justice and an even playing field for all of the american people. >> it was a decade of realignment. we had some wins. we had some losses. but we redefined the collective culture of america. >> in one generation we have moved from denying a black man service at a lunch counter to being a serious contender for the presidency. >> it was a seminal decade that paves the way for change in a way that maybe no other one did since the '60s. >> we are part of a hybrid culture and we can't deny that. so in some ways, the more obvious bi-racial identity i have to affirm, african americans also have to affirm. and white americans have to affirm. because they partake in hybrid culture. the truth of the matter is that

american culture at this point, what is truly american, is black culture to a large degree. flip on the television set and it's had a profound influence on this entire nation, and it has to be affirmed. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪