![Staff, volunteers and students pose together for group photo after Love in Music held its annual concert at Oriental Mission Church in Los Angeles on the afternoon of June 1, 2024. [Provided by Love in Music]](https://www.koreadailyus.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/2024concert.jpg)
For the Korean American community in Los Angeles, April 29, 1992, remains an unhealed scar. The riots that began in South LA engulfed Koreatown in flames, turning not only buildings to ashes but also the hopes and dreams of Korean immigrants.
Over six days, the city saw unrelenting looting and arson. More than 10,000 businesses were damaged, resulting in over $1 billion in losses. Sixty-three people were killed and more than 2,300 injured. Calm was only restored after the deployment of federal troops and the National Guard.
The trigger was the verdict delivered on April 29. Four white police officers who had brutally beaten Rodney King, an unarmed Black man, were acquitted. Outrage erupted in the Black community, and what followed was a violent uprising. The LAPD blocked access to City Hall and the wealthy, predominantly white neighborhood of Beverly Hills. With those targets sealed off, the rioters turned their anger toward Korean businesses. Pleas for protection went unanswered. The police never came to Koreatown.
Although the riots began as a response to systemic injustice, the Korean American community bore the brunt of the violence. Some 2,200 Korean-owned businesses were looted and destroyed. Two key events set the backdrop for this devastation: the killing of Latasha Harlins and the release of a song titled “Black Korea.”
On March 16, 1991—just two weeks after the Rodney King incident—Korean store owner Soon Ja Du fatally shot 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, a Black girl she mistakenly believed was stealing. Du received five years of probation, 500 hours of community service, and a $500 fine—no jail time. The sentence, handed down just nine days before the riots, deeply enraged the Black community.
Six months before the riots, on October 29, 1991, Ice Cube, a member of the prominent gangsta rap group N.W.A., released “Black Korea,” a song interpreted as a declaration of war against Korean store owners. “Respect the Black fist,” he rapped, “or we’ll burn your store right down to a crisp.” The song became an anthem of resentment for some, further fanning the flames of anti-Korean hostility.
Anger had long simmered in Black communities over Korean business owners who profited in Black neighborhoods without engaging with their residents or culture. That resentment has not disappeared—and with it, the fear lingers that another April 29 could come again.
In 2007, a group of Korean Americans founded Love in Music, a nonprofit that seeks to heal Black-Korean tensions through music and cultural connection. For 18 years, the group has provided free classical music lessons and instrument rentals to low-income Black and Hispanic children in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, and South Bay. More than 1,000 students have learned to play music through the program.
Fiki Tosin-Oni, now 20, is one of them. A Black child who didn’t know how to read sheet music at age six, Fiki learned the violin through Love in Music. This year, he was admitted to Harvard University through early decision. Today, he teaches violin to Hispanic children—an embodiment of racial harmony in practice.
As of 2025, 105 volunteers—90% of them Korean American high school students—are mentoring about 90 students. These second- and third-generation Korean youth are building bridges across racial lines through music. Their interactions are, in themselves, powerful lessons in empathy and unity.
Love in Music holds an annual spring concert to showcase its work. This year’s performance will take place at 3 p.m. on May 31 at Thanksgiving Church in Buena Park, where students and volunteers will take the stage together. Notably, the Korean American community in Los Angeles held no official event this year to commemorate the April 29 riots. Attending this concert offers a quiet yet meaningful way to honor that painful memory—and support a brighter future.
For 18 years, Love in Music has worked steadily to foster understanding and coexistence across racial lines. Their work deserves our recognition, our gratitude—and our support.
By Mooyoung Lee [lee.mooyoung@koreadaily.com]
