First published 2017
Wesley Lowery investigates police violence across America by traveling to the communities where Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray died. The Washington Post reporter conducts hundreds of interviews over more than a year, speaking with victims' families and local activists in Ferguson, Cleveland, Charleston, and Baltimore. Lowery examines how decades of racially biased policing have affected segregated neighborhoods with failing schools and crumbling infrastructure. He explores the protests that followed these deaths as part of the black community's longer struggle against injustice and discrimination. The book reveals life in heavily policed yet neglected areas of America today. Lowery asks what the loss of any single life means to the nation and shows how civil unrest serves as one form of resistance in the broader fight for justice. The work also addresses how Barack Obama's presidency failed to deliver security and opportunity to Americans who needed both most.
Genres: african-american, politics, non-fiction, biography-memoir, journalism, current-affairs, activism, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism, social-commentary
Setting: Baltimore, Charleston, Cleveland, Ferguson, United States
Period: 21st Century
256 pages · Paperback · Little, Brown Paperbacks
Content warnings: racism, violence