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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview with Danny Bakewell Sr., Anna Deveare Smith

Aired April 28, 2002 - 11:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We want to try to look ahead, if we can, to where race relations and economic relations are headed in Los Angeles with our guests now. Danny Bakewell, Sr. is president of the Brotherhood Crusade. He's in Los Angeles.

Also with us is Anna Deveare Smith, who wrote a one-woman show about the riots entitled, "Twilight Los Angeles 1992" and she is in New York. Thank you very much for joining us from both coasts now.

DANNY BAKEWELL, SR., PRESIDENT, BROTHERHOOD CRUSADE: Thank you for having us.

ANNA DEVEARE SMITH, "TWILIGHT LOS ANGELES 1992": Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Well, the pictures are indelible. No one can forget those images and those sounds, but perhaps what we didn't see in those pictures is what has happened in the ten years since, the rebuilding, the reforms that have taken place.

Danny, let me begin with you. Some of the complaints, you heard it from one gentlemen in that piece. It wasn't just about race. It wasn't just about color, but it was also about resources and economics. There's been a tremendous economic buildup in South Central Los Angeles since. What have you seen, while you have, you know, experienced the ten-year mark?

BAKEWELL: Well, certainly there are a number of things that you can point to that have been very uplifting for the community. I mean we have a Magic Johnson Movie Theater in the community. We have Allen's (ph) Vermont Shopping Center, Chesterfield Square Shopping Center. There's a number of things that have been done that represents progress.

But I think in the final analysis, one of the problems that we have to be clear about is that you can't judge the condition of the community by the successes of merely a few very high profile projects, or even the successes that have been made by a class of individuals.

WHITFIELD: And some of those projects being new banks. You've got movie theaters. You've got business that has been brought in, businesses that were brought in that weren't there before. But you're saying that is not a good barometer?

BAKEWELL: Well, it's not a good barometer because there's still about a 50 percent unemployment that exists in the African-American community. There is still no major manufacturing going on. We have been fighting to get major corporations to bring their products for us to consume, but we have not engaged in any dialog in bringing manufacturing so we can actually produce those products.

If there's anything that has come forward in the light since this ten-year event, it's that we have got to do things that will produce jobs that will pay major, major resources. I'm talking $20, $25 a hour jobs so that we can actually change the underclass that exists in our community. People make more money, they're able to do better for their families. They're able to have better homes. They're able to buy homes. It begins to create a kind of class that changes the quality of life for all of those that exist.

We certainly don't condone what happened. We can never endorse people resorting to violence, but it was a classic case of people who were faceless, people who were voiceless, speaking to power in the only way that they knew that they could get their attention. There has been police brutality going on in the African-American community for decades.

People have been saying to the powers that be, this happens, yet in Black and White, we saw the vicious, violent beating that Rodney King took, and in the final analysis, people still issued a verdict that vindicated those police officers, and that was the outrage.

So while we know that it is something we never want to see happen again, the realities are it is very possible.

WHITFIELD: And there have been reforms, particularly in LAPD. The second police, Black police chief, Bernard Parks, who has been leading a number of these reforms, but there are some criticisms still from people there who say it isn't enough, especially since the commission has recently voted out Mr. Parks, and he has, as a result, stepped down himself. But there are reforms that still need to take place on a very basic level when it comes down to the judicial system there.

BAKEWELL: Well, that's true, except that I think many of us believe that Bernard Parks has done an extraordinary job in transforming the police department from something that was violent, something that was depressing and oppressing towards the people, to a police department that has respect and operates with dignity, and a police department who certainly now operates on the basis of upholding their oath to protect and serve.

There certainly is more that needs to be done, but now we've had an influx or a suggestion by the new mayor that in spite of all of this progress, he wants his own person. That is not faring well with the African-American community, and I don't think it's faring well with the city. It remains to be seen what is going to happen.

I think Bernard Parks will go on to lead this city from a council position as well as I think ultimately, we all will be waiting to see him declared mayor of the city one day. WHITFIELD: Danny, I want to bring in now Anna Deveare Smith out of New York. Anna, you have a knack for one-woman shows. This one yet another provocative display there of your talent, "Twilight Los Angeles 1992," what is the focal point? Is it the riots or is it what has happened since the riots?

SMITH: Of the play?

WHITFIELD: Yes.

SMITH: Well, I went to Los Angeles just after the riots to interview people about them, so it is, in fact, a remembrance of that time. In fact, Danny Bakewell was one of the 288 people that I interviewed in order to create a play, in which I would play several parts, and ended up taking that play to Broadway, playing 46 of the characters in a one-woman show, and now have created a movie that came out last year on PBS, and is available on PBS.

And the reason that I wanted to make a film of the play was because I knew I couldn't play the play forever, and I wanted young people who would be about 18 years old now, to know about what happened in Los Angeles, because they would have been eight at the time.

And not only to commemorate a tragedy, but to put this riot in our memory, in our national memory in a constructive way, so that we can try to get at some of the root causes to make sure that it will never happen again.

WHITFIELD: So what did you do with some of the characters in order to reach some of those younger folks, who don't remember, who really are only hearing about it perhaps for the first time?

SMITH: What did you say? Who were some of the characters?

WHITFIELD: Who were some of the characters that you're playing that you are trying to help tell the story?

SMITH: Well, everybody from Korean shop owners, whose businesses were burned down, to Darryl Gates, to the police commissioner Stanley Sheinbaum (ph) who was responsible for firing Darryl Gates, to one of the boys, some of the young men who were a part of beating up Reginald Denney (ph), to Rodney King's aunt, a wide span of folks.

And my idea was to suggest in a very fractious environment, that if I, one person, could play all of these people, then perhaps any observer could get to another person's point of view. The goal being in my audience to have a person crying, while the person sitting next to them was laughing, because I'm aware of how in our United States of America we have such different experiences.

But I want to pick up on one of the things that Danny Bakewell has said in talking about the underclass. I think that we also have to think about the over class, and one of the promises that were made during the riots or following the riots was that we understood that a key problem was education, and that we were going to do something. We, meaning all of us citizens, to improve that, and I don't think that the improvements are enough.

BAKEWELL: Right.

SMITH: Not just the improvements in terms of educating people who are disenfranchised, but educating people who have privileges. Because in the end, it's not just, I think Danny would probably agree with me, how the powerless speak to power, but how the powerful speak to the powerless. Where is the place that we're going to have a conversation that shows that what we're here on earth to do is celebrate humanity?

WHITFIELD: So, Danny, you were about to touch on this a bit earlier. You talk about the disproportionate numbers of, you know, the economic successes or the resources that are available.

Let's talk about the disproportionate number of Blacks and Hispanics that are still jailed in talking about the current situations that many people say they were ready to complain about and they were firing up, you know, buildings and protesting about ten years ago, and a racial divide, you know, is still there. The resources are not being spread out evenly.

So how do we make this the launch pad for the next five years then, what are you recommendations?

BAKEWELL: First of all, I think we have to recognize, as Anna said, that a lot of people who came in the aftermath and responded to the civil unrest, where are they now? They have gone. They really didn't come with the conviction of staying to really transform the quality of life that existed in the community.

They came and they gave token participation. Not that they didn't mean well, but if we're actually going to solve this problem, we've got to look at the root causes. We've got to look at unemployment.

We've got to look at the lack of jobs, as I said, in manufacturing that exist in our community. We can't just sort of focus on some highlighted issues. We've got to have the political will to change the way people live and the way communities survive. We've got to reform education.

But we've got to be very specific about how we approach these problems. When you talk about gang proliferation in our community, it's hard to say that every time you see a group of people standing on the corner that they're just looking to get into something negative, because many of them, they're just standing there because they have no jobs. We got to take that seriously, and we've got to do something about it. We as a community have a responsibility also to do something for ourselves.

WHITFIELD: OK.

BAKEWELL: We can't just sit around and wait and ask other people to do for us, what in many instances we know we're capable of doing for ourselves. WHITFIELD: All right, Danny Bakewell, I'm going to have to make that the last word. We're out of time, but I know Anna Deveare Smith, you're going to be on Aaron Brown later on Tuesday night on NEWSNIGHT, and perhaps you'll get a chance to speak a little bit more on this very prolific topic here. Danny Bakewell and Anna Deveare Smith, thank you very much for joining us from both coasts this morning.

BAKEWELL: Thank you for having us.

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