This Land Is Your Land. . . This Land Is My Land

RESIDENTS OF SIMI VALley don't usually have much contact with people from South Central Los Angeles. The lustrous suburb where the Rodney King beating trial was held and the inner-city war zone that erupted in rioting two weeks ago are separated by just a 45-minute ride. In most other respects they are a world apart. But last week, for a fleeting moment of mutual incomprehension, they came face to face.

On Tuesday a convoy of 150 activists from South Central arrived to picket the courthouse where the four policemen were tried. "Why do you bother us?" Simi Valley housewife Suzanne Heffernan...