April 29, 2025 marks the 33rd anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, known in the Korean American community as 사이구 “Sa I Gu,” which stands for the numbers 4-2-9 indicating the first day of civil unrest that resulted in $1 billion dollars in damage (almost half of it disproportionately in Koreatown), 63 deaths, over 2300 people injured, 12,000-plus arrests, 3,600 fires, 1,100 buildings burned to the ground and 2,300 Korean-owned businesses destroyed.
My award-winning YA nonfiction book, RISING FROM THE ASHES: LOS ANGELES, 1992. EDWARD JAE SONG LEE, LATASHA HARLINS, RODNEY KING, AND A CITY ON FIRE (Norton Young Readers 2024) chronicles these events through the eyes of three families forever torn apart and yet also forever intertwined with each other at the heart of the uprising: Edward Jae Song Lee, an 18-year-old man shot and killed in the crossfire trying to protect a Koreatown business; Latasha Lavon Harlins, an innocent 15-year-old teenaged girl shot and killed in a shoplifting dispute by storeowner Soon Ja Du, who was later sentenced to probation by Judge Joyce Karlin; and Rodney Glen King, a 25-year-old unarmed motorist whose life-threatening beating by four LAPD officers was the first to be captured live on video and aired across the world, only for a jury to find Sgt. Stacey Koon and officers Theodore Briseno, Timothy Wind, and Laurence Powell not guilty of assault and excessive force on April 29, 1992. (The jury deadlocked on one count for Powell.) Just a few hours after the LAPD beating trial verdicts were announced, Los Angeles erupted as people protested across the city. More than 10,000 National Guard and 5,000 federal troops were deployed after 25 people were killed on the first night alone.
I also wrote a special essay, “My Own Sa I Gu” for the Horn Book Magazine here: https://www.hbook.com/story/the-writers-page-my-own-sa-i-gu
It was an honor and privilege to interview the families of Edward Lee, Latasha Harlins and Rodney King, along with almost 100 people (activists, community leaders, law enforcement, firefighters, members of Congress and other local politicians, attorneys, academics, community members etc.) for my book. One special interview was with K.W. Lee, known as the “Godfather of Asian American Journalism.” Mr. Lee died this past March 8, 2025 at the age of 96. Here is the Los Angeles Times obituary of K.W. Lee by Melissa Gomez: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-03-15/k-w-lee-known-as-the-godfather-of-asian-american-journalism-dies You can also see Hyungwon Kang’s pictorial tribute here: https://www.kang.org/kwlee Hyungwon Kang, whom I also interviewed for my book, won the Pulitzer for his breaking news photography of Koreatown here: https://www.kang.org/4-29-riots. Check out my photo gallery on the main page of my website honoring Kang’s work. Grateful thanks to award-winning translator and interpreter Aerin Park, whose work you can find here: https://www.aerinpark.com and please check out award-winning narrator Kevin R. Free in the Audiobooks version here: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/rising-from-the-ashes-los-angeles-1992-edward-jae-song-lee-latasha-harlins-rodney-king-and-a-city-on-fire/760639?qId=60fc21914aa736684e3a78b76c3759fb&pos=2
K.W. Lee’s family has requested that, in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The K.W. Lee Center for Leadership at: https://www.kwleecenter.org/.
I first met K.W. Lee in 1995 when I moved to Los Angeles to be a reporter for PEOPLE Magazine. I also had the honor of meeting Korean American veteran journalist K. Connie Kang, too. She died at the age of 76 on August 16, 2019 from pancreatic cancer. They were both so generous and supportive with their advice for me and other fledgling 20something Korean American journalists, for which I am forever grateful.
K.W. Lee also attended the same college as my dad – Tennessee Tech (known back then as Tennessee Polytechnic University). Mr. Lee was the first Asian American ever to be hired by a mainstream newspaper outlet in 1955 by the Tennessee Kingsport Times News. He later wrote for several more newspapers, and his most famous expose saved Korean American Chol Soo Lee from Death Row by proving he was wrongfully convicted for a 1973 San Francisco Chinatown gangland murder. K.W. Lee’s investigative reporting is featured in the award-winning 2023 documentary, FREE CHOL SOO LEE (directed and produced by Julie Ha and Eugene Yi).
During my research for RISING FROM THE ASHES, photographer Hyungwon Kang and I drove to Sacramento to meet K.W. Lee for an interview. I am the last person to interview K.W. Lee about Sa I Gu and the 1992 Los Angeles uprising. Here’s a photo I took of Hyungwon presenting his book, A VISUAL HISTORY OF KOREA, to Mr. Lee.
In my book, I chronicle how K.W. Lee founded the Korea Times English Edition to provide more nuanced, in-depth stories about the Korean American community. His newspaper examined accusations of anti-Blackness in the Korean community with unflinching honesty and accountability. He also worked with Larry Aubry of the Black-owned newspaper, the Los Angeles Sentinel, by combining their reporting staffs together for several stories about both communities.
Here is an excerpt of one of K.W. Lee’s editorial that I wrote about in RISING FROM THE ASHES and his clarion call for the Korean American community to be pro-active as allies for the Black community and to build a bridge of solidarity:
EXCERPT FROM RISING FROM THE ASHES: In a searing editorial for his Korea Times English Edition published on November 25, 1991, K. W. Lee condemned Judge Karlin’s probation sentencing of Soon Ja Du as a “grievously myopic misjudgment.”
“I am torn between the world of Latasha Harlins and Soon Ja Du, each sharing the tragic everyday life in one of the city’s most violent and wretched districts— both in pursuit of that elusive American Dream,” K. W. Lee wrote. “I, along with every thoughtful Korean… share the grief and anger of the Harlins family and friends. Latasha’s name is etched deeply in the collective conscience of Korean Americans everywhere in their American passage.”
K. W. Lee declared that there was hard work and a lot of soul-searching ahead for the Korean American community. “We New Americans must demonstrate through plain and specific deeds that we are not only good neighbors but participants in helping rebuild the scarred and ravaged neighborhoods. That’s the Number One lesson from the Latasha Harlins tragedy. And that’s the only way for us to remember and cherish the name of a young soul, who, like so many young African Americans, has died so young.”
Years later at a Korean American Students Conference held at the University of Washington in 2005, K.W. Lee told students that they had a duty to uphold and continue the legacy of the previous generation who marched in solidarity for justice for Rodney King and Latasha Harlins in 1992. “You are the first and last line of defense for your parents,” Lee said. “Remember that! You have to define your destiny in your own terms…. When you have thirty thousand demonstrators in America, it’s the largest… demonstration in America. They are carried out by your parents who don’t speak… English. And you guys were present at it. That’s when I was reborn again. I became a Korean American.”
It was an honor to interview K.W. Lee for my book. My gratitude and love for the entire Lee family. I am grateful for his advocacy work, mentorship, and his fierce passion for the truth. I always say “WRITE LIKE YOU MEAN IT” – that is inspired by how K.W. Lee always wrote like he meant it. Our words have power and can provide meaningful change in our society as we continue to fight back against racism and discrimination while forging unbreakable bridges of solidarity with each other. #WriteLikeYooMeanIt
