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There’s no question that Rodney King was brutally beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers – video taken of the savage act proves it. Yet the four men seen clubbing King were acquitted by a Simi Valley jury in 1992, lighting a match for one of the deadliest and costliest civil unrests in U.S. history.

Read More: How Spike Lee, John Singleton and John Ridley Left Their Marks on the 25th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Riots

It’s 25 years later, and Los Angeles – and the Lapd – have changed. But has the rest of the country? Regular reports of police brutality, now well-documented in an age of phone cameras, makes it clear that we haven’t come all that far. Several new documentaries explore the L.A. riots, including the underlying reasons, the actual events, what happened next, and how it relates to today. Among the filmmakers putting their own...

This year, the April 29 anniversary of the Rodney King riots became a recognized event on the programming calendar. Over the next week, networks are releasing a half-dozen nonfiction narratives to commemorate the 25 years since the Los Angeles uprising, including three from some of our most compelling African-American filmmakers: Spike Lee, John Singleton, and John Ridley.

“Black directors have different viewpoints,” said Lee, who directed writer-actor Roger Guenveur Smith’s one-man show “Rodney King” for Netflix. “We don’t see the world all the same.”

Read More: L.A. Riots 25th Anniversary Documentaries, Ranked: Which Ones Best Explain the Unrest Now

Ridley and Singleton took a more traditional path to the material, digging into period video archives and interviewing many of the people directly involved in the riots that yielded 55 lives lost, 1,100 buildings destroyed by fire, and some $1 billion in property damage.

Lee came at the subject from another direction. Smith has...

This year, the April 29 anniversary of the Rodney King riots became a recognized event on the programming calendar. Over the next week, networks are releasing a half-dozen nonfiction narratives to commemorate the 25 years since the Los Angeles uprising, including three from some of our most compelling African-American filmmakers: Spike Lee, John Singleton, and John Ridley.

“Black directors have different viewpoints,” said Lee, who directed writer-actor Roger Guenveur Smith’s one-man show “Rodney King” for Netflix. “We don’t see the world all the same.”

Ridley and Singleton took a more traditional path to the material, digging into period video archives and interviewing many of the people directly involved in the riots that yielded 55 lives lost, 1,100 buildings destroyed by fire, and some $1 billion in property damage.

Lee came at the subject from another direction. Smith has performed “Rodney King” for four years in small venues and when “Rodney King” hits Netflix on April 28 in 190 countries,...