Rodney King, R.I.P.

Rodney King, unlikely civil rights icon, was found dead Sunday morning at the bottom of a pool at his Rialto, California home. Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement released yesterday, "Rodney King was a symbol of civil rights and he represented the anti-police brutality and anti-racial profiling movement of our time... Through all that he had gone through with his beating and his personal demons he was never one to not call for reconciliation and for people to overcome and forgive." (source )

Nordette Adams wrote in a short eulogy on her blog what has been on the minds of a lot of people who fight for civil rights, and fight against institutionalized racism:

I wish I could say that his death represents the end of an era, but with the Trayvon Martin case, the Darius Simmons case (not his murder as much as how the police treated the family while his body lay on the sidewalk) and other similar cases, I know any announcement of an end to police officers brutalizing black people or trampling their rights would be a leap.

Rodny King was 47-years old. R.I.P.