A New Name for an Old Phenomenon

Michele Willens speaks with Danny Goldberg about his new book on the police beating of Rodney King and its aftermath.

By Michele WillensDecember 14, 2025

• Law

• History

DANNY GOLDBERG HAS been a major force in the music world for decades. A New Republic cover story in 1989 featured a cartoon drawing of him in a piece about Hollywood’s relationship to the Democratic Party. He was a leader in fighting for free speech in the arts, creating a movement referred to as “The Musical Majority.”

But his new book, Liberals with Attitude: The Rodney King Beating and the Fight for the Soul of Los Angeles, is primarily about his former role as chair of the ACLU Foundation board. Liberals with Attitude is a takedown of former Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates and his role in the infamous 1991 Rodney King incident. “Gates was a demagogue, a bully, and a vehicle for white grievance,” writes the author: “he intimidated politicians who should have known better.”

It was a complicated time. A contemporaneous poll showed that 60 percent of L.A citizens believed police brutality was common, yet 75 percent also believed that the LAPD would protect them from crime. The author reminds us of all the featured players: Tom Bradley, the former police officer elected mayor in 1973; Richard Riordan, a Republican businessman (not unlike the other coast’s Democratic mogul Michael Bloomberg) who would, two decades later, become the city’s mayor; Warren Christopher, the widely respected attorney and former US secretary of state, who penned the final draft of the Rodney King report—the document’s opening words, Goldberg reminds us, were “The Rodney King beating stands as a landmark in the recent history of law enforcement, comparable to the Scottsboro case in 1931.”

This being Los Angeles, Hollywood figures also play roles in the book. At one point, Goldberg came up with the idea of asking actor Ed Asner to “portray” Daryl Gates at a press conference. He also hosted one himself with actor Wesley Snipes, who had been pulled over by cops for the “crime” of being a Black man in a white neighborhood. Figures such as Norman Lear, Warren Beatty, and Paul Newman are also among the liberal voices to be found here. (Full disclosure: My father, Harold Willens, mentioned in the book, worked primarily on antinuclear issues with all those famous folks and was one of the so-called “Malibu Mafia.” In addition, I covered California politics for years.)

Liberals with Attitude is divided into sections covering “The Inflection Point,” “The Backstory,” “The Media,” and “The Long Road to Denouement.” It is a good and easy read—and, I might add, an important one for young people who may only slightly know the name Rodney King, let alone those who have seen the infamous eight-minute video, taken via camcorder by a local citizen, of white officers beating him. They could learn a lot about this city and its history of Black struggle against police violence long before George Floyd woke up the country again in 2020.

Goldberg reminds us of many things in this book, including the LAPD’s so-called “code of silence.” “The police department had a culture that strongly discouraged criticism of fellow officers,” he writes. “Daryl Gates may not have approved of the behavior of the LAPD’s most brutal officers, but he protected them.”

I spoke with the author about his hopes for the new book.

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MICHELE WILLENS: Who do you consider to be the potential readers of Liberals with Attitude?

DANNY GOLDBERG: People interested in the interactions of race, law enforcement, morality, and politics. Political progressives and liberals who want to learn about a rare success story on the issues of race and policing. And, of course, people interested in Los Angeles history.

Is it fair to say the leading character here is Daryl Gates?

Daryl Gates is the villain. Tom Bradley, Stanley Sheinbaum, Warren Christopher, the ACLU of Southern California, and Maxine Waters are the heroes.

With all the current talk about policing, the deployment of the National Guard, ICE, and so on, does this book feel especially timely?

Although technology and other aspects of modernity have dramatically changed American political culture, I am struck by how relevant the events in Los Angeles in the early 1990s are to America in 2025. Although the specific issues are different, the moral arguments about diversity and the need to balance legitimate concerns about crime with morality and social cohesion are remarkably similar.

Were there any pivotal people you could not get to participate?

A lot of the main characters are no longer alive, and a couple had health problems that precluded their involvement. But everyone else who had any connection to the events was available and very forthcoming. The Rodney King beating and its aftermath were a big deal to anyone who was there, including former city council members, ACLU staffers and lawyers, journalists, and politicians who were active at the time.

How do you look back on your L.A. life? Mostly as your music career or your ACLU activism, or both?

I loved living in L.A., and both of my kids (now in their thirties) were born there. I loved the work I did, both in the music business and with the ACLU. I moved back to New York to become president of Atlantic Records, which had long been my dream job. And then the kids started school and I didn’t want to move again, but I visit several times a year and still have many friends there.

Do you think the city has found—or refound—its soul?

It’s such a vast, complicated city, and I don’t know it as well today as I did when I lived there. But I do think that the changes in the LAPD due to the efforts of the protagonists in my book have helped put the city onto a much better, more soulful path.

Is music still a big part of your life? Do you have any favorite memories? Any regrets?

I am still in the music business via my company Gold Village Entertainment, which manages the careers of Steve Earle, the Waterboys, and a few other artists. As to regrets, I made hundreds of mistakes that I would erase if I could go back in time. But I thank God every day that I stumbled into the music business in the late 1960s.

Finally, how do you define “liberals with attitude”? How does that differ from what Donald Trump would call “wokeness”?

My definition of “liberals with attitude” is when progressives figure out how to actually be successful. As I write this in late August 2025, Gavin Newsom looks like he may join the club. As for the term “wokeness,” it seems to mean different things to different people at different times, depending on the political agenda of whoever is using the word. To the extent that it refers to race relations, I am reminded of what Martin Luther King Jr. said when asked if the Civil Rights Movement had caused a “white backlash.” He answered that “the white backlash is merely a new name for an old phenomenon.”

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Danny Goldberg is the author of five previous books, including In Search of the Lost Chord: 1967 and the Hippie Idea (2017) and the national bestseller Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain (2019). He is a political activist who serves on the boards of Public Citizen, Americans for Peace Now, and Brave New Films. He was the chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California from 1987 to 1994, during which the events described in his newest book, Liberals with Attitude: The Rodney King Beating and the Fight for the Soul of Los Angeles (2025), took place. He is currently president of Gold Village Entertainment and has worked in the music business since the early 1970s as a personal manager for Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Bonnie Raitt, the Allman Brothers, and Steve Earle, among others, and as president of three major record companies: Atlantic, Warner Bros., and Mercury.