Teaching The LA Riots At Two City Schools : NPR: It has been 20 years since four white police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King and LA erupted in riots. Many in Los Angeles, including students who weren't born when the riots hit in April 1992, are reflecting on those days of anger, looting and destruction and asking why it happened and how to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Most history books used in LA schools end at the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and '60s, so 11th grade history teacher Anthony Lawson, who was 10 at the time of the riots, has to improvise. Lawson teaches at Animo Locke High, a charter school. Everyone in the class is 16 or 17, black or Latino, and lives in the neighborhood, which isn't far from flashpoint of the riots.
