In Black Rage in New Orleans, Leonard N. Moore traces the shocking
history of police corruption in the Crescent City from World War II
to Hurricane Katrina and the concurrent rise of a large and
energized black opposition to it. In New Orleans, crime, drug
abuse, and murder were commonplace, and an underpaid, inadequately
staffed, and poorly trained police force frequently resorted to
brutality against African Americans. Endemic corruption among
police officers increased as the city's crime rate soared,
generating anger and frustration among New Orleans's black
community. Rather than remain passive, African Americans in the
city formed antibrutality organizations, staged marches, held
sit-ins, waged boycotts, vocalized their concerns at city council
meetings, and demanded equitable treatment. Moore explores a
staggering array of NOPD abuses-police homicides, sexual violence
against women, racial profiling, and complicity in drug deals,
prostitution rings, burglaries, protection schemes, and gun
smuggling-and the increasingly vociferous calls for reform by the
city's black community. Documenting the police harassment of civil
rights workers in the 1950s and 1960s, Moore then examines the
aggressive policing techniques of the 1970s, and the attempts of
Ernest "Dutch" Morial-the first black mayor of New Orleans-to
reform the force in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Even when the
department hired more African American officers as part of that
reform effort, Moore reveals, the corruption and brutality
continued unabated in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Dramatic
changes in departmental leadership, together with aid from federal
grants, finally helped professionalize the force and achieved
long-sought improvements within the New Orleans Police Department.
Community policing practices, increased training, better pay, and a
raft of other reform measures for a time seemed to signal real
change in the department. The book's epilogue, "Policing Katrina,"
however, looks at how the NOPD's ineffectiveness compromised its
ability to handle the greatest natural disaster in American
history, suggesting that the fruits of reform may have been more
temporary than lasting. The first book-length study of police
brutality and African American protest in a major American city,
Black Rage in New Orleans will prove essential for anyone
interested in race relations in America's urban centers.
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