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Untitled [Alex Tabor on Fight the Power: African Americans Clarence Taylor. Fight the Power: African Americans and the Long History of Police Brutality in New York City. New York: New York University Press, 2018. v + 309 pp. $35.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-4798-6245-0. Reviewed by Alex Tabor (University of Cincinnati) Published on H-Nationalism (March, 2019) Commissioned by Evan C. Rothera (University of Arkansas - Fort Smith) In Fight the Power: African Americans and problem of police brutality and means of curbing the Long History of Police Brutality in New York police power, enduring battles over the creation City, Clarence Taylor, professor emeritus of his‐ and delegation of punitive power to a Civilian tory at Baruch College, adds to several works on Complaint Review Board (CCRB) independent of the unique experiences of African Americans in the New York Police Department (NYPD) (and that New York City and their resistance to “racial ter‐ department’s relationship to oversight measures ror by the arm of the state,” emphasizing diverse at all levels), and the role of local leadership—spe‐ methods employed by the black press, the Americ‐ cifically of mayors and police commissioners—in an Communist Party (ACP), the Nation of Islam acknowledging and responding to the grievances (NOI), and civil rights organizations (p. 6). Taylor of the city’s African American (and Latinx) com‐ contributes to an expanding volume of literature munities. Though generally chronological in addressing misconceptions that the African Amer‐ presentation, Taylor’s book begins by emphasizing ican civil rights movement in the United States the contributions of groups frequently overlooked was a mid-century and predominantly localized, or misrepresented before shifting focus to dec‐ grassroots phenomenon and was primarily a fea‐ ades-long contests between local elected officials, ture in the South.[1] Fight the Power makes unam‐ representatives of the NYPD, and citizens seeking biguous the longue durée of contests for equality reform. by black Americans, highlighting efforts by di‐ In chapter 1, Taylor distinguishes The People’s verse individuals and groups to challenge abuses Voice from among other black newspapers as “the of police power. most critical of police brutality” for its role in ad‐ Although “police brutality has been a problem vocating for victims of police brutality and serving since the founding of professional police depart‐ as a watchdog for black citizens’ rights (p. 11). Cre‐ ments in the mid-nineteenth century,” Taylor’s ated in 1942 by Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Jr., analysis begins in the 1940s—placing “a massive senior pastor of the city’s largest and most presti‐ wave of black migration from the South” to New gious Abyssinian Baptist Church and later New York City within the context of Harlem’s 1935 and York’s first black congressman (1944), the first edi‐ 1943 riots—and continues to the current mayor‐ tion “envisioned a ‘world made safe for demo‐ alty of Bill de Blasio (p. 3). He traces several cracy and also an America made safe.’” Pushing themes throughout, including perspectives on the beyond other black weeklies, the Voice linked ra‐ H-Net Reviews cism and class exploitation and called for econom‐ gress whose objective was “to fight for the civil ic justice, fair wages, and an end to employment and economic rights of black Americans” (p. 39). discrimination, and “promised to crusade for im‐ Building on earlier analogies of police brutality as proved housing, health facilities, better element‐ lynching, the National Negro Congress of which ary schools, more black faculty members, and sup‐ the ACP was a part conceptualized police brutality port for black businesses” (p. 13). Bolder in tone as genocidal “state-sanctioned violence,” laying a than contemporaneous black presses like the New broader foundation for campaigns against the use York Amsterdam News, the Voice exposed police of force with impunity by police on black New brutality by countering the racist imagery of black Yorkers across the following half-century. New Yorkers ubiquitous in white presses that In the final chapter dedicated to a specific en‐ many blacks held equally responsible for the pre‐ tity or group, Taylor complicates the body of liter‐ valence of police brutality with “carefully con‐ ature that focuses predominantly on the NOI’s vi‐ structed and distributed images of upright, hard‐ olent confrontations with police and calls for arm‐ working, law-abiding citizens, innocent of any ament and self-defense with an investigation of criminal offense” and by “providing a counter- the NOI’s nonviolent strategies, which prioritized narrative” to that of the police replete with “de‐ negotiations with police and government repres‐ tailed accounts of incidents, using eyewitnesses” entatives; legal redress; and, like the Voice or the (pp. 15, 14, 13-14). The Voice “became the people’s ACP’s Daily Worker, political pressure applied record of violent encounters between law enforce‐ through media to empower and mobilize black ment and Harlemites” (p. 33). Though the Voice people “against state dominance” (p. 57). Spiritual proposed numerous solutions to the police brutal‐ and religious organizations ubiquitously provided ity crisis, few were acknowledged by government a means of fostering community for many African and police that did not recognize police brutality Americans across all periods of US history, but as a reality. Taylor explains that some assumed nationalist Taylor asserts that “the American Communist tones in the wake of northward migration to urb‐ Party was perhaps the most active political organ‐ an spaces and the Great Depression, providing fol‐ ization in the fight against police brutality” in lowers with “explanations for their social circum‐ chapter 2 (p. 35). The Communist Daily Worker stances that framed black people as the people of characterized police brutality as “northern lynch‐ God” and that “challenged white supremacy by ing” perpetrated by those in power and argued blaming whites for black misery” (p. 59). Beyond that police in the North assumed the role of the its “psychological approach toward eliminating lynch mob in the South (p. 36). Like the Voice, the low black self-esteem,” the NOI mirrored earlier ACP also connected race and class in their under‐ black organizations’ emphases on racial uplift and standing of police brutality, noting the police’s role reliance on charismatic leaders—like Elijah Robert in maintaining “the capitalist economic structure” Poole (later Elijah Muhammad) and Malcolm X— and “fragmenting the working class, thus stopping to convey prophetic visions of black liberation any attempt at creating a unified opposition” to from “white ‘devils’” (p. 60). The NOI’s perception capitalism; the ACP asserted that “police specific‐ that police brutality was “purely an expression of ally targeted African Americans in order to des‐ white people’s evil nature,” and not symptomatic troy ... black and white unity among workers” (pp. of structural inequities of power, and the some‐ 36, 37). Not only did Communists lead anti-lynch‐ times contradicting and vacillating positions on ing campaigns and launch an international cam‐ the use of violence in self-defense served as two paign for the freedom of the Scottsboro Nine, the rifts of contention between the NOI and other na‐ party also participated in the National Negro Con‐ tional groups and leaders working to end police 2 H-Net Reviews brutality, most notably, the National Association missioner in 1949, published a four-factor list “for for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) determining good police-community relations” and Martin Luther King Jr. (p. 63). However, the that, though including police attitudes toward the NOI “adopted de-escalation as an approach before community and the inverse, lumped racial and re‐ police departments themselves” embraced such ligious attitudes in a failure to recognize canyons training, and the former’s embrace of “useful non‐ of distinction (p. 89). Not until Edward Jacko of the violent strategies,” especially in the Johnson X. NAACP’s legal redress team uncovered a secret Hinton case, “challenged the racist images of deal between the FBI and NYPD that “shielded the blacks used by law enforcement” much like the NYPD from a federal investigation into police bru‐ Voice and other contemporary organizations (pp. tality” was the department forced to create a 82, 83). formal CCRB, whose original composition in 1953 Chapters 4 through 11 broaden in scope, illus‐ included only three deputy police commissioners trating a dynamic and enduring contest between (p. 91). numerous local civil rights organizations and co‐ alitions and their pursuit of myriad reforms inten‐ ded to curb police power, establish external over‐ sight of police training and operation, and demo‐ cratize decision-making processes related to com‐ munity justice. Chapters 4-7 focus on the 1950s-60s and 8-11 advance from the mid-1980s to the present. Contextualizing campaigns against police brutality, Taylor notes that “New York City politic‐ al activists were depicting police brutality as a civil rights issue long before the rise of the civil rights movement in the South” (p. 84). Despite Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s formation of a com‐ mission in the 1940s that recommended the police commissioner appoint a five to seven member, in‐ terracial “Citizen’s Public Safety Committee” of Harlemites to receive citizen complaints, no such body formed in response to either of Harlem’s ma‐ jor riots; LaGuardia served as New York City’s mayor from 1934 to 1945 (p. 86). To community activists, an oversight body independent of the NYPD with investigative and punitive power was fundamental to ensuring fair and full protection, but wartime interests in maintaining national unity against Axis powers contributed to stifling any possibility. Mayors and police commissioners throughout the 1940s and early 1950s failed to re‐ spond to repeated commission recommendations for a civilian complaint review board and instead argued that “the primary problem ... was poor public relations.” William O’Brian, serving as com‐ 3 H-Net Reviews In chapter 5, Taylor analyzes how several civil Rudy Giuliani.
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