Rodney King Dead at 47

Rodney King has been called, "an accidental agent of change." His videotaped beating by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department led to what are still called "the Rodney King riots of 1992." As the upheaval was just beginning, he famously asked, "Can't we all get along?" King died early yesterday morning in his own swimming pool, apparently from an accidental drowning. He was 47 years old. Raphael Sonnenshein is Director of the Pat Brown Institute at Cal-State Los Angeles, and author of Politics in Black and White: Race and Power in Los Angeles.