A Gathering of Heroes

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Alan-Williams is an African American TV actor, who, at the height of the Los Angeles riots nearly two years ago, deliberately set out for the epicenter of the violence, determined to try to restrain his fellow blacks' anger and, if necessary, to save victims of it. As he did so, he was mindful of the many violences done to him as a young black man growing up in largely white Iowa--and of a time, in the Marine Corps, when he had willingly participated in the beating of a fellow recruit that led to the man's suicide attempt. At the heart of the book is a searing eyewitness account of the frightful brutality and lawlessness of that day in Los Angeles. Alan-Williams saved two people: a young light-skinned black whose attackers, whom Alan-Williams drove off, mistook for white, and a terribly injured Japanese man he rescued from his smashed car. Alan-Williams's description of the actions and emotions of the occasion is gripping; his analysis of his own motives and of the senseless brutality of the attackers lacks any trace of the maudlin or the vengeful. Alan-Williams thinks clearly, standing outside the vagaries of racial politics as a man of hard-won conscience--though he ruefully admits that his own anger and resentment sometimes betray him. His small but intense book is inspirational in the best sense of that much-abused word. Photos not seen by PW . (Mar.)

Kirkus Reviews

The media called them Good Samaritans, those brave souls who rescued drivers trapped at the Florence and Normandie intersection—ground zero of the '92 L.A. riots. Alan-Williams, an African- American actor, was one of them. Here, his short but impassioned report dovetails his role at the intersection with reflections on black rage, mob violence, individual responsibility, and the dangers of stereotyping. Alan-Williams hears the Rodney King beating verdict on his car radio. After his aerobics class, he drives purposefully to the already notorious intersection, his large hope being to save the victims from their aggressors and the aggressors from themselves. The actor was no saint. He had been badly bruised by racism during his Iowa childhood and understood the self-destructive rage that ensues, but he had also—as an aspiring Marine eager to show he was "one of the fellas"—participated in a despicable group attack on a fellow-recruit. At the intersection, he plunges into the mob to rescue an Asian truck-driver, beaten to a pulp. He drags him away, drawing for support on the "gathering of heroes" inside his head, those who had taught him compassion (like the Mayan woman in Mexico caring for her disfigured child) and those who had taught him steadfastness (his Marine drill instructors). Perception is everything. Where Alan-Williams sees in the driver his battered childhood self, a furious teenager sees a justly punished "Korean motherfucker." (The victim is, in fact, Japanese-American.) Minutes later, an LAPD squad car approaches the blood-soaked Samaritan and his charge, sees human refuse, and speeds away. But there is a happy ending. Overcoming his prejudice, Alan-Williamsentrusts Takao Hirata to a "brother" wearing a shoulder-length "doo" rag, who delivers him safely to the hospital. A moving illumination of the meaning of brotherhood. It deserves to sell and sell and sell. (Eleven photographs—not seen)