Washington in the 90s

Mount Pleasant Riots

Beginning in the 1980s, refugees from war torn Central American countries began settling in D.C.'s Adams Morgan and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods. Language and cultural barriers created tensions with the law enforcement. On May 5, 1991, these tensions boiled over into riots after a police officer shot a Salvadorean man. As Tom Sherwood called it, the riots were a "grow-up moment for the city."

Mount Pleasant Riots

3m 32s

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    Washington in the 90s

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    WETA takes viewers on a journey through a time not long ago, but which now seems a world away. Washington in the '90s recounts the major events, people and places of a decade in which the District of Columbia transitioned from a city of crisis, to a city of opportunity.

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