The Rodney King verdicts kicked off riots in Los Angeles and my hometown of Long Beach, CA. Here, multiple buildings burn near the famed VIP Records on May 1, 1992. Photo by Cristina Salvador Klenz.
Exactly thirty years ago, in the aftermath of the Rodney King verdicts, my hometown was on fire.
I didn’t live in Long Beach at the time — I was in journalism school in Nebraska back then — but Hidden author Cristina Salvador Klenz already was working as a photojournalist at the local newspaper here, the Long Beach Press-Telegram. She was one of very few women in the photography department at the time.
A Long Beach police officer arrests a looting suspect. Photo by Cristina Salvador Klenz
When word came to the newsroom that there was severe rioting in Los Angeles ( just north of us), all the photographers were eager to go. And all of them were sent — except for Cristina and a female colleague. No one said why, but the why was obvious.
She was apoplectic.
“No one sent me out to shoot anything,” Cristina told me. “I was so angry. I left the paper on my own without telling anyone and drove around Long Beach with a photographer from a wire agency.”
What she found on that drive was that Los Angeles wasn’t the only city reeling from the verdicts. Long Beach was in crisis, too. She was kind enough to share three of the photos she took with me.
A man watches the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) burn down. It was later rebuilt in a new location. Photo by Cristina Salvador Klenz.
Look closely and you’ll see how amazing the two fire photos are. The billboard in the foreground of the first one, and the way the smoke frames the firefighter in the second. Wow.
The photographers came back from Los Angeles with cameras loaded with photos, but none compared to Cristina’s. Hers were chosen for page one.
“Had I not [gone out on my own], these photos would not exist today and we also would not have any coverage of the riots in our own city,” Cristina said. “Everyone was worried and looking for me, but my determination got the front-page photo.”
I don’t want to cheapen this post by saying something reductive like, “Girl Power!”
But, seriously, like, girl power.