Clarence Taylor. Fight the Power: African Americans and the Long History of Police Brutality in New York City.

Abstract

Arguing that “the fight against police brutality has been one of the longest civil rights struggles in American history” (6), Clarence Taylor’s Fight the Power examines efforts by Black residents of New York City and their allies to improve local policing from the 1930s to the present. While the author narrates countless high-profile acts of police brutality throughout, the heart of the book centers around Black people fighting back. Indeed, Taylor’s purpose is to examine “the activist groups that carried out long campaigns … to end racially targeted police brutality” long before the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement of the 2010s and the explosion of civil unrest in 2020 (4). In addition to chronicling residents’ demands for liberal reform and community control of police, however, Taylor also explores how police officers, administrators, elected officials, and other police advocates resisted reform, shored up police power, and cracked down on crime. Even as sensational acts of racist police violence stirred community action, members of the New York Police Department (NYPD)—with the help of politicians and journalists—exploited citizens’ fears of crime in order to deny or justify brutality in the name of law and order. If the pattern of police scandal, community protest, and limited reform outlined by Taylor seems timeless—even repetitive—it speaks to the “extraordinary resistance by the police and their allies to altering the power dynamics between people of color and law enforcement” (6). As Taylor concludes, “despite the gains made by the anti-police brutality movement, such abuse continues to plague New York City” (246). Taylor hopes to “bring attention to this long fight,” give voice to survivors, and empower communities in the ongoing fight for racial justice (245).