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After the Rodney King Riots, a Change of Leadership for the LAPD

Former Police Commissioner of Philadelphia Willie Williams replaced the controversial Los Angeles Police Department chief Daryl Gates. Williams' challenge has been to improve the relationship between the police and the community, and to build-up morale within the force. Williams has also had to prepare the department for possible further disturbances in the community, in light of the April riots over the Rodney King verdict. Two court cases coming up could ignite more rioting: the Federal civil rights trial of the four white officers acquitted of beating Rodney King, and the trial of three black men accused of beating white truck driver Reginald Denny during the April riot.

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Other segments from the episode on February 23, 1993

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, February 23, 1993: Interview with Willie Williams; Interview with Nelson George; Review of the film "Love Field."
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16:37

Writer and Critic Nelson George on the Diversity of African American Identities

George is one of this country's most prominent chroniclers of black music and culture. He was the black music editor at "Billboard" for seven years and is a regular columnist for the "Village Voice." His new book "Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos: Notes on Post-Soul Black Culture," is a collection of his writings about the last two decades in Black urban culture. George also edited the book, "Stop the Violence," a collaboration of top rappers working to end black-on-black violence.

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11:05

O. J. Analysis: How the L. A. P. D. Bungled the Case.

Editorial writer for the New York Times Brent Staples. He wrote a memoir last year: Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black & White (Pantheon). In 1984, Staples' younger brother, a cocaine dealer, was murdered. Staples began a process of reconsideration of the major questions in his life: his distance from his family by graduate study at the University of Chicago; the demise and racial divisions of his industrial hometown in Pennsylvania.

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