CULTURE WARS ★^1097described executions as common in Europe but rare in America. By the early
twenty- first century, the United States ranked with China, Iran, and Saudi Ara-
bia as the nations that most often executed their citizens. The 2.2 million Amer-
icans in prison in 2015 represented one- fifth of the entire world’s inmates and
far exceeded the number in any other country.
The continuing frustration of urban blacks exploded in 1992 when an all-
white suburban jury found four Los Angeles police officers not guilty in the
beating of black motorist Rodney King, even though an onlooker had captured
their assault on videotape. The deadliest urban uprising since the New York
draft riots of 1863 followed. Some fifty- two people died, and property damage
approached $1 billion. Many Latino youths, who shared blacks’ resentment
over mistreatment by the police, joined in the violence. The uprising suggested
that despite the civil rights revolution, the nation had failed to address the
plight of the urban poor.
The Continuing Rights Revolution
Reflecting the continued power of the rights revolution, in 1990, newly orga-
nized disabled Americans won passage of the Americans with Disabilities
Act. This far- reaching measure prohibited discrimination in hiring and pro-
motion against persons with disabilities and required that entrances to public
buildings be redesigned so as to ensure access for the disabled.
Some movements that were descended from the late 1960s achieved great
visibility in the 1990s. Prominent among these was the campaign for gay rights,
which in the last two decades of the century increasingly turned its attention to
combating acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a fatal disease spread
by sexual contact, drug use, and transfusions of contaminated blood. AIDS first
emerged in the early 1980s. It quickly became epidemic among homosexual
men. The gay movement mobilized to promote “safe sex,” prevent discrimina-
tion against people suffering from AIDS, and press the federal government to
devote greater resources to fighting the disease. The Gay Men’s Health Crisis
organized educational programs and assistance to those affected by the dis-
ease, and demanded that drug companies put AZT, a drug with some success
in treating AIDS, on the market. A more radical group, ACT UP, disrupted a
mass at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral to protest what it called the Catho-
lic Church’s prejudices against gays. By 2000, even though more than 400,000
Americans had died of AIDS, its spread among gays had been sharply curtailed.
But in other parts of the world, such as Africa, the AIDS epidemic remained out
of control.
Gay groups also played an increasing role in politics. In cities with large
gay populations, such as New York and San Francisco, politicians vied to attract
their votes. Overall, the growth of public tolerance of homosexuality was
What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?