100 books like I Can't Breathe

This might seem like a strange choice since this book is not directly about policing. But it shows in a powerful and direct way how inextricably bound policing is with the basic organization of this society.

Despite the controversies currently surrounding Hayley’s depiction of Malcolm X’s life, the book retains its power to express Malcolm X’s cutting critique of every one of this country’s justifications for its brutal criminal justice system. No one who engages with it can believe that police exist simply to deal with some criminal element in society.

But the book also shows how impossible it would be for this society to somehow “defund” the force used to keep under control the millions of people who, even with all their talents, this society can find no place for.

Forman’s book is a must-read to learn why the War on Crime was not merely the work of one party or one racial group in society. Indeed, a number of people of color, including black mayors and black chiefs of police, strongly supported tough-on-crime measures.

The book raises the question of what it will take to reverse the trends of mass incarceration, given these realities.

This is the autobiography of one of the men hanged for the bombing at Chicago’s Haymarket that took place during the strikes for the eight-hour day that started on May 1, 1886.

He was born in Texas and, after fighting for the Confederacy as a teenager, switched sides and became an activist for the Radical Republicans who defended the rights of the freed people. When Reconstruction ended and Jim Crow was being built, Parsons was driven out of the South and went to Chicago. He came to see the exploitation of workers in the North as a new form of slavery – and the police as a key instrument in the hands of employers to maintain that new wage slavery.

In this work, written just days before he was executed, Parsons developed an early critique of the police and the entire modern system of law, which he saw as inextricably… show more.

While the origins of northern police in this country were rooted in the development of a new set of class relations among white people, discussions of policing today cannot be untangled from the history of African Americans.

Trotter shows that Black people have always been a crucial part of this country’s workforce. Racism itself is rooted in the ways that Black workers’ position has been shaped by capitalists, non-black workers, and Black workers themselves, and this has been true since the dawn of slavery.

In his last chapters, Trotter brilliantly illustrates how the problems created for the entire working class by the end of the post-World War II economic boom were inflicted out of all proportion on the Black population. In other words, the relatively well-paying jobs were destroyed, and it was Black workers in particular who lost them.

The rise of mass incarceration since the 1970s and the violent… show more.

This book brought tears to my eyes as a little girl living in Harlem in the 1950s dreamed of becoming a prima ballerina in a time where “colored” dancers were not allowed to perform on stage.

Each night she wished upon a star that her dream would come true, though it seemed highly unlikely. I felt for this child whose dream her society strove to deny. I cheered her path to gradual acceptance in the ballet school.

Better, Not Bitter is the inspiring story of Yusef Salaam, one of the Central Park Five (now Exonerated Five), who was arrested at fourteen and wrongfully incarcerated for seven years. While in prison, Yusef drew strength from his newfound faith—a faith that helped him survive the dangers he faced daily. In time, Yusef came to see that he was “born on purpose, with a purpose.” A powerful story of redemption and resilience, of one man’s mission to motivate others to make a difference in the world.

Maple was the architect of the tactics that allowed the NYPD to lower homicides by 60% in two miraculous years from 1990–1992. This book is easy to read and often funny, which doesn’t obscure Maple’s tactical genius. The story of how a lowly transit cop who fancied suits, vests, bow ties, and homburgs became Assistant Commissioner of Police in New York is astonishing. You can only regret that Maple was never able to use his fake “Gun-Sniffing Dog” ploy to flush suspects with concealed firearms. It was sheer genius.

Kathy Mallory is a character unlike any other. Kathy was a child of the streets who had the good fortune of being adopted into the loving home of a police officer who saw her brilliance and resourcefulness even at a young age. Years later, Kathy has become an NYPD officer who brings justice to victims through her own sense of right and wrong. She is a street-hardened, lone wolf who doesn’t stop until she gets what she wants. I love the complexity of this tough-as-nails female officer who bends all the rules in her pursuit of justice. This book is so well written I immediately read every book I could find by this author.

Only when I arrived in Paris did I discover the works of this major African American writer.

Back then, Himes—still under-recognized in the USA—was a long-time household name in France. Himes not only brought the American crime novel to the Black part of town, he did it with a satiric bite that is his distinguishing feature.

The Black police detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson are at the center of the nine novels in Himes's Harlem Cycle, an epic achievement in crime fiction.

Himes's Harlem is a violent phantasmagoria where Digger and Ed—in order to protect the poor, ordinary working folk of the community—are forced to be the baddest of the bad.

Cotton Comes to Harlem is my favorite work in the collection. Published in 1965, it skewers both Black militants and white racists with wicked glee.

This book is a haunting and haunted story of the young Edgar Allen Poe when he was a cadet at West Point in 1830. Already a published poet at that point, young Edgar is a moody and very unlikely candidate for the army, but his inclination for the darker side of human life comes in handy when a cadet is found hanging—with his heart cut out—and Edgar is chosen to help the big city detective who comes on campus to solve the murder. I just learned this was made into a movie! I loved the book, read it years ago, and have never forgotten it—now I’ve got to go get the movie.