For Rodney King, it's all about the next generation, about moving forward and not what happened 20 years ago, to him or to Los Angeles, or even what he or the city has been through since.

Two decades ago he watched as the most violent episode of social unrest in U.S. history unfolded before his eyes all because the four policemen accused of delivering a vicious beating to him a year before in a traffic stop were acquitted. But he and others who lived the Los Angeles Riot of 1992 say the city has managed to move on and now faces challenges different from the dense racial tension that divided blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians in those days.

"It's slowly getting better, but it is getting better," he told TIME between appearances to promote his new book The Riot Within. "I can tell. It's been so bad so long, it's hard for people to see the difference. Speaking for myself I see the difference in police relations especially in Los Angeles and in other parts of the U.S. too."...