Less than two weeks before his death, I was scheduled to interview Rodney King on the public stage at the annual Leimert Park Book festival in Los Angeles. I had two conflicting thoughts about the interview. One was that if the well-worn term accident of history term ever applied to anyone, it was King. The second was what made King, 21 after that fateful night of his beating by four white Los Angeles Police officers captured in shocking detail on videotape, still such an enduring figure, name and most importantly, a symbol.