When I think back to growing up in 1990s Los Angeles, a handful of impressions remain sharper than others-the killing of Latasha Harlins, the '92 rebellion (what the media referred to as "riots"), the '94 earthquake, the 0. J. Simpson trial-but often, when I reach back, it's the cultural touchstones I land on first. Of those, none remains quite so vivid as in 1996, the year after the upstart United Paramount Network launched. UPN couldn't match the budget of broadcast rivals like NBC, but it was the only one of the Big Five that devoted a considerable slate of programming to investigating black lives. Even more important, somehow it found an unprecedented breadth in its focus.
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