police brutality — Bunk History

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The Bad-Apple Myth of Policing

Violence perpetrated by cops doesn’t simply boil down to individual bad actors—it’s also a systemic, judicial failing.

by Osagie K Obasogie via The Atlantic on August 2, 2019

Uncovering the Truth About a Raid on the Black Panthers

How a team of lawyers exposed lies about police violence.

by Flint Taylor via Literary Hub on February 25, 2019

The Assassination of Fred Hampton

The young Civil Rights activist was killed in the dead of night by police and the FBI. Who was Fred Hampton?

by Mariah-Rose Marie M via The Nib on February 15, 2019

This, Too, Was History

The battle over police-torture and reparations in Chicago’s schools.

by Peter C. Baker via The Point on January 14, 2019

Payback

For years, Chicago cops tortured false confessions out of hundreds of black men. Years later, the survivors fought for reparations.

by Natalie Y. Moore via The Marshall Project on October 30, 2018

Chicago police in a carriage.

A History of Police Violence in Chicago

At the turn of the century, Chicago police killed 307 people, one in eighteen homicides in the city—three times the body count of local gangsters.

by Jeffrey S. Adler, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on October 3, 2018

The Kerner Omission

How a landmark report on the 1960s race riots fell short on police reform.

by Nicole Lewis via The Marshall Project on March 1, 2018

Remember the Orangeburg Massacre

The February 1968 killing of three student protesters in Orangeburg, SC marked a turning point in the black freedom struggle.

by Robert Greene II via Dissent on February 7, 2018

In 1968, Three Students Were Killed by Police. Today, Few Remember the Orangeburg Massacre

The shootings occurred two years before the deaths at Kent State University, but remain a little-known incident in the Civil Rights Movement.

by Lorraine Boissoneault via Smithsonian on February 7, 2018

Police Dogs and Anti-Black Violence

Police brutality has been a hot topic in contemporary society, but when did this all really start and where did dogs get involved?

by Tyler D. Parry via Black Perspectives on July 31, 2017

Ida B. Wells Offered The Solution To Police Violence More Than 100 Years Ago

The answer runs through the history of anti-lynching laws.

by Keisha N. Blain via Made By History on July 11, 2017

The inmates during a negotiating session on September 10, 1971. An uprising born of panic and confusion triggered a cascade of paranoia that extended to the Nixon White House.

Learning from the Slaughter in Attica

What the 1971 uprising and massacre reveal about our prison system and the liberal democratic state.

by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on August 22, 2016

Policemen with nightsticks dragging Black man down the street.

The Reason in the Riot

Senator Fred Harris describes his experience on the Kerner Commission, tasked with explaining the causes of urban riots in 1967.

via BackStory on August 18, 2016

The Canine Terror

Since slavery, dogs have been used to intimidate and control African Americans.

by Tyler D. Parry, Charlton W. Yingling via Jacobin on May 19, 2016

Policemen with nightsticks dragging Black man down the street.

What the Kerner Report Got Wrong about Policing

The Kerner report neglected that police were not simply careless with black lives; they deliberately sought to punish black lives.

by Daniel Geary via Boston Review on May 19, 2016

The Awakening of Thurgood Marshall

The case he didn’t expect to lose. And why it mattered that he did.

by Gilbert King via The Marshall Project on November 20, 2014

Black and white photograph of James Baldwin

A Report from Occupied Territory

These things happen, in all our Harlems, every single day. If we ignore this fact, and our common responsibility to change this fact, we are sealing our doom.

by James Baldwin via The Nation on July 11, 1966

Protestors confronting Army military police.

When the Military Comes to American Soil

Domestic deployments have generally been quite restrained. Can they still be?

by Joshua Braver via The Atlantic on June 17, 2025

Militarized National Guard confronts peaceful protesters in Los Angeles, 2025.

What History Tells Us to Expect From Trump’s Escalation in Los Angeles Protests

Since the 1960s, studies have shown that heavy-handed policing and militarized responses tend to make protests more volatile — not less.

by Jamiles Lartey via The Marshall Project on June 9, 2025

Photos of William F. Buckley and James Baldwin.

When William F. Buckley Jr. Met James Baldwin

In 1965, the two intellectual giants squared off in a debate at Cambridge. It didn’t go quite as Buckley hoped.

by Sam Tanenhaus via The Atlantic on May 20, 2025

Student Carl Griffin shows Senators Walter Mondale and Birch Bayh the bullet holes left by the police shooting at Jackson State.

DOJ Shakeup May Put Civil Rights Probe of 1970 Jackson State, Mississippi, Killings At Risk

The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Act made way for investigations of racially motivated killings. The federal agency enforcing it is in disarray.

by Daja E. Henry via The Marshall Project on May 14, 2025

A National Police Week ceremony.

The Jim Crow Origins of National Police Week

Police brutality and corruption are painful realities. So are officers who die performing their duty. But the memorial in Washington fails to distinguish them.

by Elizabeth Robeson via The Nation on May 9, 2025

LAPD building dedicated to William H. Parker.

The World Darryl Gates Made: Race, Policing, and the Birth of SWAT

The very features that made the LAPD appear more professional also expanded its reach and capacity for violence.

by Aaron Stagoff-Belfort via The Metropole on May 7, 2025

A drawing of Kamala Harris in a police uniform.

Lipstick on the Pigs

Kamala Harris and the lineage of the female cop.

by Sophie Lewis via The Drift on October 28, 2024

Citizens march in 1979 with a banner for Greensboro Massacre justice.

How a Group of Revolutionary Anti-Racist Activists Planned to Fight the Klan in North Carolina

Remembering the lead-up to the 1979 Greensboro Massacre.

by Aran Shetterly via Literary Hub on October 10, 2024

A drawing of a crowd of people standing around the Wakasa stone in a crate.

The Recollector

How the Wakasa stone, a memorial to a Japanese man murdered in a Utah internment camp, became the flash point of a bitter modern dispute.

by Pablo Calvi via The Believer on July 11, 2024

Collage of Stop Cop City protestors and Coca Cola products.

No Atlanta Way

Stop Cop City meets the establishment.

by Sam Worley via The Drift on June 28, 2024

WTO protestors in 1999.

How Activists Across the Pacific Northwest Planned the 1999 Seattle WTO Protests

Looking back on the environmentalist and anti-globalization movements of the 1990s.

by D. W. Gibson via Literary Hub on June 21, 2024

Illustration of Frances Thompson, bordered by smoke from green candles, and a purple flower.

How a Disabled Black Trans Woman Left Her Mark on 19th-Century Memphis

For a brief moment in history, Frances Thompson was Memphis’ biggest scandal. Her life paints a different picture of our civil rights legacy.

by Justin A. Davis via The Emancipator on June 13, 2024

A rendering of Buckminster Fuller and June Jordan's “Skyrise for Harlem” project published in Esquire, April 1965.

Nowhere But Up

In the wake of the 1964 Harlem riots, June Jordan and Buckminster Fuller’s plan to redesign the neighborhood suggested new possibilities for urban life.

by Nikil Saval via New York Review of Books on June 8, 2024

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