Race, Crime, and Policing in the Jim Crow South: African Americans and Law Enforcement in Birmingham, Memphis, and New Orleans, 1920–1945 by Brandon T. Jett

Abstract

Reviewed by: Race, Crime, and Policing in the Jim Crow South: African Americans and Law Enforcement in Birmingham, Memphis, and New Orleans, 1920–1945 by Brandon T. Jett Theresa Jach Race, Crime, and Policing in the Jim Crow South: African Americans and Law Enforcement in Birmingham, Memphis, and New Orleans, 1920–1945. By Brandon T. Jett. Making the Modern South. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2021. Pp. xiv, 235. $45.00, ISBN 978-0-8071-7507-1.) In Race, Crime, and Policing in the Jim Crow South: African Americans and Law Enforcement in Birmingham, Memphis, and New Orleans, 1920–1945, Brandon T. Jett looks at how African Americans responded to crime and policing in three southern cities from 1920 to the end of World War II. While James Forman Jr.'s Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America (New York, 2017) explores this theme from the 1960s on, Jett provides an important look at a critical period in the development of policing in the Jim Crow South. As police forces expanded and professionalized, African Americans found ways to use the police to clean up their own neighborhoods. Focusing on agency, Jett shows that Black southerners were not just victims of police indifference or brutality. Using extensive police records, newspaper accounts of crime, court records, and witness statements, Jett gives voice to both victims and perpetrators of crime in Memphis, New Orleans, and Birmingham. Jett chooses these three southern cities for his study because they all were legally segregated, and they all greatly expanded their police forces, but had no Black police officers, during the period covered in the book. African American communities in these cities wanted police involvement in their neighborhoods to cut down on crime. Jett thoroughly delineates the ways African Americans manipulated the police to serve their own needs. While Black residents did not want the police to target them, they did want the police to treat them fairly and to prevent and punish crimes committed against them. The African American community was not only overpoliced but also underpoliced. The police saw African Americans as likely criminals and yet rarely went after those who committed crimes against them. Police often ignored or half-heartedly investigated crimes committed against African Americans. Jett argues that focusing on intraracial crime allows him to center the reactions of Black southerners rather than white fears of Black crime. He convincingly shows that both working-class and middle-class African Americans wanted the police to stop crime in their communities. They found ways to manipulate and use the police to their own ends. They sought fair administration and application of the law, due process, more police in their communities, and the hiring of Black officers. However, because Black communities had little formal political power, city governments were not responsive to their demands. Jett uses a multitude of sources to show that African Americans often used self-policing to combat crime. And significantly, he proves that the police needed the help of the Black community to arrest Black criminals. African Americans often went to the police station or called the police for help if they witnessed a crime. Witnesses turned over weapons and, in some cases, captured and held suspects. African Americans routinely did their own investigation before contacting the police and provided names, addresses, and other help in solving the crime. In fact, in many instances, they did the policemen's jobs for them. [End Page 799] Working within a Jim Crow system that demanded deference to white supremacy, African Americans found ways to combat crime in their neighborhoods. They would, at least on the surface, acquiesce to the system, in order to get the police to combat crime, trust Black witnesses, protect Black victims, and help return stolen property. Race, Crime, and Policing in the Jim Crow South provides a much-needed and nuanced look at African American interactions with the police in the urban South. It adds an important perspective on how the Black community used its power and agency to compel the police to combat crime and protect their neighborhoods. Theresa Jach Houston Community College–Northwest Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association