This ambitious account of the 1992 riots following the acquittal of the officers charged with beating Rodney King also looks at the lives and experiences of King and two other young people in order to explore racism, race relations, economics, and other contributing factors and complexities leading to the violence. Korean American Edward Jae Song Lee, 17, responded to the call to help defend Koreatown businesses being smashed, burned and looted; he was one of 63 people who died over three days. Latasha Harlins, 15, was an African American teen killed in March, 1992, by a Korean store owner, shot in the back as she left the store following an altercation after she was accused of trying to steal orange juice. Yoo makes clear they each had dreams, and each faced challenges that were complicated by race, racism, and economics. Along with their stories she places what happened in the larger context of the history of the Black and Korean communities in L.A. and the relations between them, which were far more nuanced and complex than the stereotypes that media coverage at the time relied on. A deep dive into the events of April 29 to May 3, 1992, includes the experiences of Black and Asian journalists covering the unrest, those who courageously stepped in and saved lives, and those who look back with regret at their actions in this work that admirably refuses to simplify or sensationalize its subject.

Winner of the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award

A Horn Book Fanfare Best Book of the Year

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year

A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year 

A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books of the Year

Award-winning author Paula Yoo delivers "a comprehensive, kaleidoscopic account of what happened before, during, and after the 1992 Los Angeles uprising" (Horn Book Magazine, starred review).

In the spring of 1992, after a jury returned not guilty verdicts in the trial of four police officers charged in the brutal beating of a Black man, Rodney King, Los Angeles was torn apart. Thousands of fires were set, causing more than a billion dollars in damage. In neighborhoods abandoned by the police, protestors and storeowners exchanged gunfire. More than 12,000 people were arrested and 2,400 injured. Sixty-three died.

In Rising from the Ashes, award-winning author Paula Yoo draws on the experience of the city’s Korean American community to narrate and illuminate this uprising, from the racism that created economically disadvantaged neighborhoods torn by drugs and gang-related violence, to the tensions between the city’s minority communities. At its heart are the stories of three lives and three families: those of Rodney King; of Latasha Harlins, a Black teenager shot and killed by a Korean American storeowner; and Edward Jae Song Lee, a Korean American man killed in the unrest. Woven throughout, and set against a minute-by-minute account of the uprising, are the voices of dozens others: police officers, firefighters, journalists, business owners, and activists whose recollections give texture and perspective to the events of those five days in 1992 and their impact over the years that followed.