Rodney King's Legacy: A Civil Rights Symbol

We all make mistakes. Some are bigger than others. And if we survive them, most of us try to learn from our mistakes, make amends and move on. Rodney King made the biggest mistake of his life — drinking and driving — on the night of March 3, 1991, when four white Los Angeles police officers nearly beat him to death during a traffic stop. Earlier this year, as he and the rest of the nation were about to observe the 20th anniversary of the 1992 riots sparked by the acquittals of the four officers who brutalized him, King told me that he thought he was going to die that night.

"I was close to death on March 3, 1991," he said during an April interview for Ebony magazine at the Los Angeles Marriott Hotel downtown. "I thought they were going to kill me."

He did not die that night and today his name is the most famous symbol of police brutality in the nation and perhaps the world. As news of his surprising death spread Sunday morning, Black and Latino civil rights and community leaders were gathering in New York City to protest what they say is an unjust stop-and-frisk policy that has led to continued profiling of young blacks and Latinos and ongoing allegations of excessive force and police brutality by New York City police officers.

"What happened to me and what's happened to others can still happen," King said in the Los Angeles interview. "The police are still killing people. I am just glad I was one of those who the camera was on."

Read the full story at theroot.com.

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