Blacks and Koreans, With Bradley’s Aid, Make Truce

After a series of delicate behind-the-scenes talks, Mayor Tom Bradley’s aides have negotiated a truce between black activists and Korean merchants aimed at ending a boycott in South-Central Los Angeles and preventing racial tensions from erupting in the future.

The agreement, to be announced at a press conference this morning, will result in the shutdown of a liquor store that has been the target of a controversial boycott since June, when its owner fatally shot a black man in an incident police said was justified.

It will also establish a Korean-black “dispute resolution center” that will take an unprecedented hand in mediating disagreements between the two groups.

According to Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani, the settlement was reached after meetings between a coalition of black leaders and residents, including Brotherhood Crusade President Danny Bakewell, and a group of Korean leaders, including the head of the national Korean Grocers Assn.

The treaty is intended to end what city officials viewed as a potentially explosive racial dispute. It will give blacks an opportunity to purchase the boycotted liquor store from its Korean owner, and includes provisions for drafting a “Merchants Code of Ethics” that will govern the way merchants treat their customers.

Final details of the agreement were not put into place until late Thursday night, with Fabiani and other mayoral aides, joined by City Councilman Michael Woo, conducting fervent negotiations with Korean community leaders. The talks took place at the Hilton Hotel in Universal City, during a banquet put on by the grocers association.

The terms of the settlement, outlined by Fabiani and confirmed by Bakewell and the grocers association leaders, are as follows:

* John’s Liquor Store will be closed and the boycott suspended for a minimum of 30 and a maximum of 120 days, during which time the Korean Grocers Assn. will negotiate sale terms with the African American Honor Committee, a group of black activists led by Bakewell. If the committee does not find a buyer, the store may be sold to someone else.

* The sale of the store will not include the liquor license.

* The black coalition and the grocers group will work to establish a “dispute resolution center” that will negotiate disagreements before boycotts occur. According to Bakewell, the Brotherhood Crusade will donate $25,000 to help get the center under way.

* The two sides will draft a code of ethics for merchants. They will also work together to establish a jobs program in which Korean business owners will hire black youths and bank officers will train merchants in “customer sensitivity” before loaning them money to open new stores.

The agreement meets most of the demands of Bakewell and other black leaders who have been involved in the 109-day-old boycott, although absent is their call for the Los Angeles Police Department to reopen its investigation into the June 4 fatal shooting of Lee Arthur Mitchell by store owner Tae Sam Park.

Police have said Mitchell tried to make a partial payment for a wine cooler with a piece of jewelry and, when Park’s wife refused, he pretended to point a pistol and ordered that the cash register be emptied. Park then shot Mitchell in the chest, police said.

But Bakewell, joined by the Rev. Edgar Boyd of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and other community activists and residents, refused to accept the police version of the shooting. They insisted instead that the boycott of the Park’s store would continue until the police investigation was reopened.

Bakewell said Mitchell’s family has “released that condition.” He said he was pleased with the settlement.

“We are very satisfied with what we appear to have and we think it is going to make the community feel very, very vindicated in this whole process,” Bakewell said.

“We’re talking about jobs, we’re talking about an infusion of African-American capital into the community. . . . More importantly it represents the restoring of dignity to the community. That’s what we set out to achieve.”

While Bakewell agreed to the settlement at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, the Korean contingent did not until four hours later, after the negotiations at the Universal Hilton. Park and his wife attended the sessions and Park said afterward, through a translator, that they support the agreement.

“Because I didn’t do anything wrong, it is regrettable for me to lose the business,” Park said. “But for the good of the relationship between the two communities, I realize I have to make a hard, practical decision and I go along with the Korean-American community’s decision.”

Korean leaders said they were proud to have reached the accord, but distressed that Park had to give up his store.

Said David Kim, president of the Korean American Grocers Assn. of Southern California: “We’re not too happy about it but we are willing to do it for the peace of the community.”

One of the biggest winners in the settlement may be Bradley, who had vigorously opposed the boycott and had long been pressing for it to end. In a year in which Los Angeles has been rocked by the police beating of black motorist Rodney G. King, the mayor was especially eager to ease racial tensions.

Early into the protest, Bradley asked Bakewell to meet with him to discuss a resolution, but Bakewell refused. In late August, Bradley met with Boyd and other black community leaders. But the meeting did little good.

In mid-September, Bakewell and Boyd announced the formation of the African American Honor Committee and said they would meet with anyone interested in settling the dispute.

According to a source familiar with the negotiations, Bradley and City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas then arranged for the leaders of the Korean Grocers Assn. to meet with the group. The first meeting took place on Monday.

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