Thirty Years ago
This past week marked the 30th anniversary of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. This week-long race riot in 1992 was one of the worst in American history. The people of Los Angeles suffered immensely.
Rioters caused over $1 billion worth of property damage and over 2,000 injuries in just one week–between late April and early May 1992. Quite brutal indeed.
Some of the worst parts of the Rodney King riots occurred in the Koreatown neighborhood. For context, Los Angeles is home to the largest Korean-American population in the United States. Over 300 thousand Koreans live in the Greater Los Angeles area. For those unfamiliar, Koreatown is the neighborhood where many of LA’s Korean residents reside and own businesses.
Sadly, rioters destroyed/damaged over 2,000 Korean-owned businesses during the riots. In spite of the extensive damage, the LA police offered little-to-no protection to the businesses and people of Koreatown.
So then, what did the Koreans of LA do in response? What were they going to do since the police wouldn’t protect their community/businesses from rioters?
The Answer: they defended their community.
Simply put, the men of Koreatown organized into armed groups to defend their businesses from dangerous rioters/looters. These men realized that no one was going to save their businesses. No one was going to come to the rescue. Instead, ordinary men from Koreatown came together in the face of great danger and protected their businesses and families from waves of criminals. Truly an impressive feat.
At the time, the local and national news media widely covered the defenders of Koreatown. These men gained national recognition for their bravery and were later dubbed as the “Roof Koreans” or “Rooftop Koreans”. These men garnered this nickname due to widely-circulated photos of the armed Korean defenders perched on top of the businesses–in order to ward off incoming looters/rioters.
Later that same year, the conservative legend Pat Buchanan recognized the “Rooftop Koreans” for their heroism during his 1992 Republican National Convention (RNC) speech. Clearly, their good work didn’t go unnoticed.
When you see the pictures and footage of the “Rooftop Koreans”, it’s hard not to be impressed. These guys looked pretty epic and manly as they faced adversity head-on thirty years ago.
Takeaway
The reason I dedicated this post to remind us of this little-known part in our nation’s history. We must not forget the brave “Rooftop Koreans” for their courage and bravery decades ago. These men were true American patriots that day.
Let this story inspire us today to protect our families and communities from thugs and criminals.
In the words of the great Patrick J. Buchanan, “my friends, we must take back our cities, and take back our culture, and take back our country.”
As a side note, I also included a video below with some footage of the “Rooftop Koreans”. Feel free to watch the video because the footage is definitely intriguing.
One more thing, I also found this video while researching this blog post. The first half of this video made a big impression on me. I couldn’t help but feel empathy for the distraught business owner in this video. I can’t imagine the disappointment and anger this man felt after looters ransacked his business that he spent his whole life working on.
This video is both short and powerful, so please give it a watch.