A Heroine of Riots Mourned

Barbara Henry was a heroine of the city.

Her family will remember her for the private life she led, the five children she raised and the countless friends she helped.

But Los Angeles will remember Barbara Henry for her quiet courage on the turbulent afternoon of April 29, 1992, when she stepped forward to rescue a stranger from the mob.

“She’s the reason why I’m living,” said Raul Aguilar, now 49.

Aguilar had been dragged from his van near Florence and Normandie avenues on the first night of the 1992 riots. He was being beaten with a crowbar in front of the Henry home when Barbara and her husband, James, pulled him out of the crowd.

Barbara Henry, 47, died last week when her car was struck at an Inglewood intersection by a 17-year-old boy driving a stolen vehicle. She was buried Wednesday after a funeral in South-Central Los Angeles that was attended by more than 500 people.

It is a tragic coincidence that a woman who saved a stranger was killed by one. But Henry’s family and friends choose to remember that stepping out to help Aguilar was just one in a series of selfless, everyday acts that made up Henry’s life.

“She was a mother to a lot of people,” said Ben Stephens, a supervisor at Darby Park in Inglewood, where Henry was an activities coordinator. “There’s a lot of kids she raised around here.”

Her church pastor, the Rev. Noel Jones of the Greater Bethany Community Church, emphasized that “I came to send her home, not with sorrow but with joy. We say, thank you Barbara for a life well-lived.”

In both South-Central Los Angeles and the Inglewood neighborhood that was her second home, she was known as a “football mom” and the founder of a local Boys and Girls Club. In recent years, she saw her youngest son through life-threatening brain surgery.

The Henry family lives on Florence Avenue, in a Craftsman home half a block from the intersection with Normandie.

On the day the riots started after a Simi Valley jury found four policemen accused of beating motorist Rodney King not guilty, James had not yet returned from work and Barbara and their 11-year-old son Jacques were home alone.

Much of what transpired at the intersection is well remembered by Los Angeles residents. Soon, trucker Reginald O. Denny was nearly beaten to death on live television.

As Aguilar approached the intersection in his van, someone threw a rock through his window. Another assailant reached into the cab and pulled out the gear shift, disabling the vehicle. Aguilar was trying to push his van away when he was attacked again.

“Some guys came in a car and spotted Raul,” Barbara Henry said in a 1993 interview. “They jumped out and started beating him. They didn’t know him from Adam and they just sucker-punched him.” She screamed for her husband and together they freed the beaten Aguilar.

James carried the 5-foot 4-inch Aguilar away from the scene. Later the couple insisted that LAPD officers take him to the hospital. When the officers hesitated, the Henrys placed him in the back seat of a SWAT vehicle.

The couple also allowed an injured Washington Post reporter to seek refuge in their home and stepped into the traffic on Florence to direct motorists away from the danger.

Why had they intervened? “I feel a great sense of responsibility,” Barbara said. “We kind of feel like it was our street. Our people. That we were responsible.”

Aguilar, a photographer, was in a coma for two days. The Henrys visited him in the hospital and he later became a family friend. “He’s like ours now,” Barbara once said.

The Henrys went on with their lives, with Barbara working at the post office and filling her free time with a never-ending string of volunteer work.

A former member of the Navy, she was part of the honor guard at dozens of veterans’ funerals. She was a member of the Inglewood Democratic Club. She helped out at the Inglewood Senior Center and worked at Darby park.

She was a leader in the Inglewood Jr. All-American Football League. As “team mother” to dozens of teams, she saw at least one of her charges--Curtis Conway--make it to the NFL.

In recent years, she spent much of her time shuttling Jacques to St. Bernard High School in Playa del Rey and to doctors for treatment of a malignant brain tumor.

“It’s a big shock that she’s right above me” in heaven, said Jacques, now 17. “She was so worried about me dying during my operation.”

The young man still bears a long scar from the procedure and faces even more surgery in December. Last week, however, he seemed more worried about his father, who was slightly injured in the accident that claimed Barbara’s life.

Jacques placed his hands on his father’s shoulders to comfort him when, during an interview in the family living room, the elder Henry was startled by the sound of a car screeching to a halt just outside.

“You all right dad?”

James nodded as Jacques kissed him gently on the forehead.

The couple hoped to retire and buy property in the South, where both had been born: Barbara in Conway, Ark., and James in Winona, Miss.

A car accident ended those dreams.

On Sept. 29 the couple was enjoying a rare night out and was returning home when they stopped to look for a new restaurant they heard was opening up near Hillcrest Boulevard and Nutwood Street in Inglewood.

A vehicle raced around the corner and struck the Henrys’ car. At first, Barbara did not appear to be seriously injured.

“As I was holding her, she was looking just as beautiful as ever,” James said. “But she had a lot of pain on one side.”

Suffering from massive internal injuries, Barbara died a few hours later at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. The youth driving the car was held by Inglewood police on murder charges.

At Wednesday’s funeral, held at the same church where Barbara once sang in the choir, more than a dozen speakers stepped forward to talk about her life, including Aguilar.

“The good Lord steered me out of that place, to a safer place, which was in front of Barbara’s home,” he said, reading solemnly from a poem he had written.

Pastor Jones told the assembled mourners not to allow the tragedy “to overwhelm the greatness of the life that has been lived.”

“She believed that if you treat people with dignity and with love, that God will take care. . . . My faith says God will bring Barbara back.”

He urged the mourners to stand up and celebrate Henry’s life. “I feel the Holy Spirit here!” Jones said as the audience clapped. Her life, he said, was “a great victory.”

“Give somebody a high-five!” the pastor shouted.

All through the church, just about everybody did.