Liberals with Attitude: The Rodney King Beating and the Fight for the Soul of Los Angeles

by Danny Goldberg

The dramatic and captivating story of an unlikely coalition that formed in the wake of the Rodney King beating to challenge the destructive reign of Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates


LIBERALS WITH ATTITUDE DOCUMENTS THE SIXTEEN MONTHS IN 1991–92 between the brutal beating of Rodney King by four police officers that was captured on a home video camera and the resignation of LAPD chief Daryl Gates. Gates was reviled by the local Black and civil liberties communities because of the pattern of racism and brutality in the department, and he was uniquely powerful because of the structure of the Los Angeles City Charter and the secret files he kept on local politicians.


The effort to get Gates to step down after thirteen years as chief and to amend the City Charter to prevent another unaccountable chief from amassing that much power was led by Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, a former LAPD officer and the first Black mayor of the city. To overcome Gates’s entrenched power, Bradley assembled a team that included future US secretary of state Warren Christopher, the local ACLU, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and activists who saw the struggle against Gates as an important chapter in the civil rights movement. Much of the local media, especially the Los Angeles Times, was supportive of Bradley’s agenda, as was the burgeoning “gangsta rap” culture of LA, much of which emerged in reaction to the LAPD. 


Author Danny Goldberg was the chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California during those years and was personally acquainted with the leaders of the fight against Gates. He interviewed several dozen people who are still alive and got access to thousands of pages of documents among the papers of Stanley Sheinbaum, who was married to the heiress of the Warner Bros. film fortune. Sheinbaum was chosen by Mayor Bradley to be the president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, with the specific mission of getting Gates out of office. Goldberg’s insider portrayal of this unforgettable time in US history reminds us how fragile equal rights become when held in the hands of unaccountable white men of power.

356 pages, Hardcover

Published October 7, 2025

About the author

Danny Goldberg is president and owner of Gold Village Entertainment, an artist management company; former CEO and founder of Gold Mountain Entertainment; former chairman and CEO of both Mercury Records and Artemis Records; former CEO of Air America; and frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Huffington Post, Dissent, Billboard, and many other outlets. He is the author of In Search of the Lost Chord, Bumping into Geniuses, and How the Left Lost Teen Spirit, and coeditor of It’s a Free Country. He lives in Pound Ridge, New York.

(Source: Amazon)

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

𝙇𝙞𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝘼𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚 by 𝗗𝗮𝗻𝗻𝘆 𝗚𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗴 was pretty much a 355-page analysis of what the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California (ACLU) was about and what they accomplished in the early 1990s.

Honestly, I picked up this book from the Social Science section (the law enforcement book stacks section of the Social Science section that is) and decided to check it out mainly because I saw a screenshot photo from the video of the infamous March 1991 beating of 𝗥𝗼𝗱𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗞𝗶𝗻𝗴. So, from that I assumed this book would be about Los Angeles Police Department reform, and the book was about that to a certain extent, but the book like I said before was mainly about Gates, the ACLU, certain members of the ACLU organization, and certain activists and politicians who worked in Los Angeles County in the second and last decades of the 20th century.

The ACLU and what they do isn't on my list of interests, but it was interesting to read about how they were instrumental in getting former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates to resign in 1992. He held that Chief position for 14 years and in those years, he was tone deaf to the wants and needs of Black and Brown residents of Los Angeles. It's like Gates had no compassion for those two ethnic groups and he only saw them as residents of LA or just people his troops had to protect. Thankfully, 𝙇𝙞𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝘼𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚 chronicled a solid portion of Gates' contentious era of LAPD leadership, plus the book did an exceptional job of analyzing how defiant Gates was about leaving his post in 1992.

The book starts off with a scalding hot but true quote (from 2022) about how Blacks in Los Angles from 1978 to 1992 felt about Gates and the quote came from longtime Los Angeles and national politician 𝗠𝗮𝘅𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗪𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀. Part of the quote was, "Black people hated Daryl Gates." That quote let you know what you were getting into for the rest of the book. That quote set off how frustrated the ACLU and Blacks were with Gates's leadership of the LAPD for over a dozen years. Also, in that introduction I learned that former Los Angeles Mayor 𝗧𝗼𝗺 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗹𝗲𝘆 and Gates were serious adversaries while the two were serving in their respective posts from 1978 to 1992.

One of my favorite chapters in the book was chapter 2 (I'm Not Going Anywhere), a chapter that did a good job of serving as the precursor or build up chapter for chapter 14 (The Resignation). In chapter 2, pages 91, and 96-97 are some of the best parts of the book. Those pages discussed Gates' defiance over being asked to resign and that he thought that his years of service, his Los Angeles County political cronies, and some of his Hollywood "friends" and well-wishers, would help him save his job. Nope.

Chapter 3 (Two Chiefs and a Mayor) was a trip of a chapter because it ran down how William Parker and Gates operated when they were the LAPD Chiefs of Los Angeles. Sycophants of the two men would have never written a chapter like that; the chapter pretty much gave you the reader of what type of men Parker and Gates really were. Neither of them cared about Blacks and Latinos and both of them saw the cultures as enemies or fringe people of society that needed to be policed and locked up.

Probably my favorite chapter of the book was chapter 6 (The Christopher Commission), a 28-page analysis of an independent LAPD commission that was started by Mayor Bradley. Moreover, in that chapter Goldberg explained much of the painstaking work that former statesman and diplomat 𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗿 (RIP) put into his well-known Christopher Commission job and the report (of the same name) on LAPD practices that helped see Gates to the door (his eventual resignation in 1992). And more importantly, the report gave the public a great analysis on 183 problematic and rogue LAPD officers' actions during the 1986 to 1990 period (pages 200-201).

This book was very informative with lots of notes on public figures and what they did in the early 1990s. Like on page 72, I learned that our 46th President 𝗝𝗼𝗲 𝗕𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻 who was then (in 1992) the chair of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, called on Gates to resign (page 85). And that Bradley met with Gates in on April 2, 1992, and on that day the mayor asked the arrogant, proud, and at times insufferable LAPD Chief to retire. That took guts, but you have to have guts to be a mayor, especially of Los Angeles and New York. I also found out in this book that 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻 𝗟𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗞𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗝𝗿. and 𝗠𝗮𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗺 𝗫 visited Los Angeles and Watts respectively in 1965 and while they were here, they took the former LAPD Police Chief Parker to task for his blatant racism and his handling of the Watts Riots that same year (pages 114-115).

I also learned from this book that back in late May 1992 that Waters and the late 𝗝𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲 𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀𝗼𝗻 went to Washington DC to meet with US Attorney General 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐦 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐫 as to urge the Justice Department to charge the four former LAPD officers with violating 𝐑𝐨𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠'𝐬 civil rights (page 343). That just made me have even more respect for Waters and Jackson.

Goldberg read and took deep dives into a lot of books by other authors that he knew would help give his book a better historical punch, and this was in addition to his own historical punch from what he did for the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. The result of his studying other Los Angeles County based, LAPD based, and civil justice-based books was excellent quotes from the likes of LAPD historian 𝗝𝗼𝗲 𝗗𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗸 (alive and well today at 83 years old) on page 105 (one of the best book quotes in the book about the LAPD in my opinion). Some telling quotes (about Gates' character tone deafness to what a lot of Los Angeles were going through) from a 1991 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙗𝙤𝙮 interview of Gates was also included in the book (pages 185-187).

While reading this book, I felt bad for Blacks (of which I am one) and Mayor Bradley from 1950 to 1992 for what they had to put up with while living and working in the same town as two racist and arrogant LAPD Chief's in Parker (1950-1966) and Gates (1978-1992).

A couple gems from the book included the fact that the author of the book knew of some of my favorite rap songs such as Hellrazor (1997) by 𝐓𝐮𝐩𝐚𝐜 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐫 (page 84) and Batteram (1985) from 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐝𝐲 𝐓𝐞𝐞 (page 59).

One of the unsung heroes of the 1970s to 1990s was the 𝙇𝙤𝙨 𝘼𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙨 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙨 and their reportage on the LAPD in that time period. Goldberg made sure he dedicated a chapter (chapter 8) to their objective reporting on the LAPD and I'm glad he did. Probably the best quote in that chapter was this, "After the Rodney King beating, there would be no more "both-sideism" at the 𝙇𝙤𝙨 𝘼𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙨 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙨 about Daryl Gates and the LAPD. It was impossible to unsee the video." Well said.

One of the main protagonists (if not the main for that matter) of 𝙇𝙞𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝘼𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚 was the late 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗹𝗲𝘆 𝗦𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗯𝗮𝘂𝗺 who was a well-known peace and human rights activist and he also was the President of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners from 1991 to 1993. Sheinbaum was one of the main public figures in Los Angeles at the time who was critical of Gates and wanted him out of his job as Chief of Police, and he got his wish in Summer 1992. Goldberg made sure he dedicated a lot of pages in this book to that man. A good quote attributed to Sheinbaum in this book was on page 239, "No one escaped from his living room without a reminder about the moral necessity of getting Daryl Gates out of power." I really like that quote.

Chapter 13 (The Riots and The Fundraiser) will incense you and let you know how much Gates didn't care about the crisis going on in Los Angeles over three days in Spring 1992. Read that chapter and it will teach you something about personal insulation and how blaming someone for your failures is the mark of a person who lacks supreme leadership skills.

One of the best things Goldberg did in this book was name seven key activists and politicians in Sheinbaum, Mayor Bradley, 𝗥𝗮𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗮 𝗥𝗶𝗽𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗻, Waters, Christopher, 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗙𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗶, and 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘁 on page 355 (last page of the book before the acknowledgements section) who helped him and Los Angeles in the late 1980s and 1990s. Part of that page (355) was a dedication to those seven seven people. They would (Sheinbaum, Bradley, Ripston, Christopher, and Reinhardt passed away before this book was published in 2025) and I bet have appreciated that acknowledgement of them.

Pros of 𝙇𝙞𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝘼𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚: The book explained what the ACLU, Mayor Bradley, the Christopher Commission, the 𝙇𝙤𝙨 𝘼𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙨 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙨, and activists' roles were in trying to make Los Angeles a better place and in their combined efforts to help oust Gates from his post as the LAPD Chief. If you knew nothing about the what the ACLU is about, well, you'll will know about what they do after reading this book.

Cons of 𝙇𝙞𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝘼𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚: The book spent a lot of pages on Gates which is fine to a certain extent, but there were a lot of stories Goldberg could have told in this book from personal experiences working with the ACLU that had nothing to do with Gates. And I'm pretty sure Goldberg had a lot of stories about other LAPD cases than the 𝗥𝗼𝗱𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗞𝗶𝗻𝗴 beating. Or how about dropping some of the names of the 183 problematic officers that were named in that Christopher Commission report because it was public record. The 𝙇𝙤𝙨 𝘼𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙨 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙨 published in 1992 a long article/report on some of those troubled and contentious officers so it wasn't like Goldberg would have gotten in trouble for putting some of those names in this book.

In conclusion, 𝙇𝙞𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝘼𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚 was an informative and thoroughly researched book that educated its readers on some history of the Los Angeles Police Department and the organization's reform, plus the book informed readers on what the ACLU was about and what they did in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I would recommend this book to those who want to know how Gates was finally forced from his LAPD Chief post and how the ACLU worked in the 1990s and today.

[Sarah Jensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Review: Liberals with Attitude: The Rodney King Beating and the Fight for the Soul of Los Angeles by Danny Goldberg
Perspective: Female Sociologist & Public Health Professional

Rating: 4.3/5

Reactions & Emotional Resonance
As a scholar examining systemic racism and institutional power, Goldberg’s narrative evoked both admiration and frustration. The coalition-building between Mayor Bradley, the ACLU, and activists resonated with sociological theories of intersectional solidarity—yet I found myself unsettled by the parallels to contemporary struggles against police brutality. Goldberg’s insider perspective humanizes the tactical negotiations (e.g., leveraging media, political maneuvering), but the emotional toll on Black communities—whose trauma became a bargaining chip—lingers uncomfortably. The book’s focus on structural change (e.g., charter reforms) is laudable, yet its celebration of center-left cooperation risks sanitizing the radical labor of grassroots organizers.

Strengths
-Structural Analysis: Goldberg meticulously dissects how institutional design (e.g., LAPD’s autonomy, secret files) perpetuated racialized violence—a vital contribution to critical race and public health scholarship on systemic inequities.
-Coalitional Praxis: The unlikely alliance between politicians, activists, and cultural figures (e.g., gangsta rap artists) exemplifies how marginalized communities weaponize diverse tactics against entrenched power.
-Historical Urgency: The 1991–92 timeline mirrors current reckonings with police accountability, making it a trenchant case study for scholars studying cyclical oppression and resistance.

Constructive Criticism
-Gendered Blind Spots: The narrative centers male leaders (Bradley, Gates, Sheinbaum), sidelining women’s labor in the movement (e.g., Maxine Waters’ role merits deeper interrogation). A feminist lens would enrich its analysis.
-Public Health Absences: While policing’s racial dynamics are explored, the book misses opportunities to link LAPD brutality to health disparities (e.g., trauma’s physiological impacts, over-policing as a determinant of community health).
-Radicalism vs. Reform Tension: Goldberg’s emphasis on institutional victories underplays the tensions between reformist and abolitionist strategies—a critical debate for contemporary movements.

Final Thoughts
Liberals with Attitude is an indispensable account of how power bends—but not without cost. Its greatest value lies in exposing the messy, necessary work of dismantling oppressive systems, though its silences about gendered and health inequities remind us that no struggle is singular.

Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for the review copy. This book is a provocation to scholars and activists alike: How do we honor the past while demanding more of the future?

Rating: 4.3/5 (A rigorous yet incomplete chronicle of resistance, with lessons for today’s freedom fights.)

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liberals with Attitude by Danny Goldberg is a detailed account of the aftermath of the Rodney King beating by members of the LAPD.

As chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California during this time Goldberg can draw on his own experiences as well as the research and interviews he conducted for the book. If you remember this time frame you may have the same immediate reaction I did reading the name Daryl Gates, immense disgust at such a vile excuse for a human being as well as disappointment in a system that would give such a worthless human being so much unchecked power. Similar to what you feel when you read the name of our current felon-in-chief.

Goldberg does a wonderful job of presenting what it took, from so many different people, to make systemic change, however imperfect it is. Not everyone was given detailed backgrounds, which makes perfect sense since doing so would have made this an extremely large book. The most detail is about those who were most responsible for things turning out as they did. Gates with his tremendous arrogance and all of the things that went into his position of unchecked power, and Mayor Bradley because what many had thought of as a flaw or weakness (him not always being outspoken and out front about some of the earlier abuses) turned out to be exactly what was needed to put an end to Gates' reign, namely broad coalition of people who weren't perfectly aligned but were enough so to work together on this.

Like we used to try to get students to understand in the courses we taught, there is a difference in neglecting someone who was important in a narrative and in not telling the story from their perspective. There are many important people involved in this and it would certainly be interesting to read their recollections and a narrative from their perspective. Not doing so because it isn't the purpose of this book is not a flaw, it is an editorial decision to keep the book focused on the story being told. Usually by junior year students figure out the difference, some don't. They simply like to pose and present their one-trick pony every time.

One of the big takeaways is the importance of creating coalitions that can attract people who might not agree on more than a few policy areas. If you only bring in people who agree with most or all of your positions you will leave valuable assets on the outside. Work together on the change you can agree needs to be done now and debate other differences when the time comes. We can't instantaneously make this society exactly what we want across the board, so work together with allies on topics you agree on and start making change now rather than keep tilting at the windmills of complete utopian societal change.

Recommended for those interested in history and racism, both individual and systemic, as well as those activists who want to learn about successful campaigns of the past to help generate successful campaigns in the future.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was dry in parts for me, because I was not aware of some of the individuals the author was referring to. I paused in my reading briefly; to watch a documentary on the subject and it helped to put faces with names and helped in my understanding of the book. Prior to the book, the only names I remember knowing, were Rodney King and Reginald Denny.

The author does an excellent job of covering all of the people and circumstances involved and giving you insights into the inner workings of both government, activists and the problems within the system, and the ones that weighed heavily on this and other similar events.

The parallels in the Watts Riots and the LA Riots after the verdicts in the trials of the police were not lost on me and seemingly not much has changed in the world we live in today.

I learned more from this book than I did in any history course in my middle and high school years.

I would HIGHLY recommend this book to everyone. The insights are needed, and we need more people to become active in their acknowledgement of racism and its evils. White people especially need to reflect on the history of our country and all it has done to diminish, divide and destroy whole populations. Then, they need to act purposefully to hold those in authority and with power accountable.

The author does an excellent job of providing other resources. Y'all know I love a book that recommends other books. I will be adding this author and many of the books he lists as resources to my reading list and my own personal library.

This book provided in depth analysis, behind the scenes actions and a glimpse of what the people of the time might have been feeling and why they felt that way.

*This book was requested and won in a giveaway offered by Akashic Books, the publisher through LibraryThing. I wish to thank the author, the publisher and LibraryThing for the book.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liberals with Attitude is such an eye opening look at 1990s activism and the political climate surrounding the Rodney King beating. What really stood out to me was the way Danny Goldberg takes you behind the scenes of the movement. Instead of only focusing on the big moments, he brings attention to the people, the conversations, and the internal struggles that shaped the fight for justice in Los Angeles. I always appreciate books that show the human side of activism because it makes history feel alive and personal, not just something we read about from a distance.

I also really loved how clearly the book connects the energy of the 90s to what we are seeing in the world today. So much of the activism happening now is part of a much longer story, and this book really highlights those roots. It reminded me that the push for justice, equality, and accountability has always required courage, community, and constant pressure from ordinary people who care deeply.

Danny Goldberg’s perspective is thoughtful, reflective, and grounded in real experience. If you want a deeper understanding of political organizing, social justice, and the forces that shaped modern activism, this book is a meaningful and powerful read. It gives you context, insight, and a reminder of how important it is to keep showing up for what matters.