Thirty-five years ago, Los Angeles exploded into chaos--and a handful of men climbed onto rooftops to make a stand the world would never forget.
In the spring of 1992, as the city burned in the wake of the Rodney King verdict, Korean-American neighborhoods came under siege. The police could not--or would not--come. While many fled, a group of residents took up rifles and climbed onto the rooftops of their own stores, ready to defend their homes, their businesses, and their families against the mob below.
Tony Moon was one of them.
A young Korean-American with a complicated past, Tony walked the streets of South Central and Koreatown during the riots, doing everything he could to head off trouble before it reached his community. What he experienced on those rooftops--and in the years that followed--changed him forever.
In this raw, unflinching memoir, Moon tells the true story of the "Rooftop Koreans," ordinary people who refused to be victims when law and order collapsed around them. From the gang life of his youth to the front lines of the 1992 L.A. riots and the hard lessons learned since, this is a powerful firsthand account of identity, survival, self-reliance, and what it really means to protect your own.
Released to mark the 35th anniversary of the six days that changed Los Angeles--and the Korean-American community--forever, this new paperback edition arrives as the questions of 1992 remain as urgent as ever: What happens when the system fails? Who protects your community when no one else will? Three and a half decades later, the men on those rooftops still hold the answer.
When the system fails, you become your own defense.