Behind virus and protests: A chronic US economic racial gap

FILE - In this April 30, 1992 file photo, a fire burns out of control at the corner of 67th Street and West Boulevard in South Central Los Angeles. On April 29, 1992, four white police officers were declared innocent in the beating of black motorist Rodney King, and Los Angeles erupted in deadly riots. Three days later, 55 people were dead and more than 2,000 injured. Fires and looting had destroyed $1 billion worth of property. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

FILE - In this Saturday, May 30, 2020 file photo, a protester poses for photos next to a burning police vehicle in Los Angeles during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd. a black man who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

FILE - In this May 29, 2020 file photo, police officers fire rubber bullets during a protest over the death of George Floyd in Los Angeles. Floyd died in police custody Monday in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

FILE - In this Aug. 17, 1965 file photo, A.Z. Smith, a victim of the Los Angeles riots, checks the damage to his barber shop in the Watts area of Los Angeles. Business establishments owned by whites were the usual targets of looters and arsonists. Smith was one of the few blacks caught up in the turmoil. (AP Photo)

FILE - In this April 30, 1992 file photo, store owner Chris, left, talks to his friends from the wreckage of his store in the Crenshaw Shopping Center off Slauson and Crenshaw in Los Angeles. Most of the stores in the shopping center were looted and burned as unrest continues in the wake of the verdicts in the Rodney King beating trial. (AP Photo/Akili-Casundria Ramsess)

FILE - In this April 30, 1992 file photo, smoke rises from a shopping center burned by rioters in Los Angeles after four police officers had been acquitted of the 1991 beating of motorist Rodney King. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

FILE - This Aug. 14, 1965 file photo shows several burned-out buildings after fires started by rioters destroyed a business block in the Watts district of Los Angeles. It began with a traffic stop, blossomed into a protest with the help of a rumor and escalated into the deadliest and most destructive riot Los Angeles had seen. The Watts riot broke out Aug. 11, 1965 and raged for most of a week. When the smoke cleared, 34 people were dead, more than a 1,000 were injured and some 600 buildings were damaged. (AP Photo/File)

Pedestrians are silhouetted as they walk past a shop boarded up with plywood panels to protect the building against potential vandalism and looting Wednesday, June 3, 2020, in downtown Los Angeles, as protests continue over the death of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis. Los Angeles County pushed back the start of its curfew from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., a help to newly reopened restaurants and retail stores that were shut down for weeks by anti-coronavirus orders. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)