{"id":23214,"date":"2012-05-19T17:34:55","date_gmt":"2012-05-19T17:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=23214"},"modified":"2012-05-19T17:34:55","modified_gmt":"2012-05-19T17:34:55","slug":"rodney-king-juror-my-father-was-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=23214","title":{"rendered":"Rodney King juror: ‘My father was black’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rodney King juror: ‘My father was black’<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ventura County Star<\/a>
\nCamarillo, California
\n2012-04-28<\/p>\n

Gretchen Wenner<\/a><\/strong>, Staff Reporter<\/p>\n

SQUAW VALLEY \u2014 Juror No. 8 from the Rodney King<\/a> beating trial has always heard the 12-member panel described as either all white or as having no blacks.
\n\u00a0
\nNow, he wants the public to know that’s not the whole story: His father was a black man.
\n\u00a0
\n“Nobody’s ever guessed that I was black,” Henry King Jr. told The Star.
\n\u00a0
\nFrom the get-go, the media made a big thing about the jury having no blacks, said King, a 69-year-old retiree living in Fresno County.<\/p>\n

“It made you feel like they didn’t think we could come out with a fair verdict because we were supposed to be an all-white jury,” he said…<\/p>\n

…”There are a few things about me that people don’t know,” he initially said, then choked back tears before saying his father was black.
\n\u00a0
\nIt’s something he didn’t share with other jurors during the trial and doesn’t recall sharing when they occasionally socialized afterward. Nor had he talked about it with a reporter.
\n\u00a0
\n“Forty years ago, you really didn’t say that you were part black,” said King. “Now, I’m proud of it.”
\n\u00a0
\nWhen he applied last year to be on the Fresno County Grand Jury, one of the first things he told them was that his father was black.
\n\u00a0
\n“They thought I was joking,” he said.
\n\u00a0
\nDuring interviews on the phone and at his home on 5 acres in the southern Sierra Nevada foothills, King shared family photos and thoughts on his background and the trial. Both of his parents have since died.
\n\u00a0
\n“I look pretty white,” said King, whose friends call him Hank. “If you looked at me, you wouldn’t know I had black blood in me.”
\n\u00a0
\nHis eyes are blue; his skin is light.
\n\u00a0
\nKing variously described himself as part black, as having black blood and occasionally as black or mixed-race.
\n\u00a0
\n“I don’t know if you would say mulatto<\/a> or what,” he said at one point.
\n\u00a0
\nIn his younger years, he didn’t often think about his racial background…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rodney King juror: ‘My father was black’ Ventura County Star Camarillo, California 2012-04-28 Gretchen Wenner, Staff Reporter SQUAW VALLEY \u2014 Juror No. 8 from the Rodney King beating trial has always heard the 12-member panel described as either all white or as having no blacks. \u00a0 Now, he wants the public to know that’s not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,125,1467,8,20],"tags":[455,10811,10812,10813,10810],"class_list":["post-23214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-identitydevelopment","category-law","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-california","tag-gretchen-wenner","tag-henry-king-jr","tag-rodney-king","tag-ventura-county-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}