Does diversifying the police make a difference? Using history to analyze the Tyre Nichols tragedy through the Detroit experience (Part 1 of 3)
History and current events have shown that without structural reforms in policing, a focus on diversity and representation will not solve the systemic issues that allow police brutality to persist.
“[The cops] whipped his ass like thy’re supposed to! There they go jumping on the racist bandwagon. This ain’t no White and Black issue. It’s a police issue. He shot a cop, and I’ll whip his ass myself!”
— A Black female police officer watching TV news footage of a Black man being beaten by Philadelphia police (2000)
“The culture is exactly the same. It’s not just White officers guilty of this stuff. Black officers are guilty. It is the blue line.”
— David J. Thomas, when asked if things have changed since he was a rookie (2020)
The cycle of police violence and protest in America has so often been told as a story of White officers killing Black people. But as Van Jones notes in his op-ed, the narrative “White cop kills unarmed Black man” should not be the sole lens through which we attempt to understand police brutality.
Today, the world is still reeling from body cam footage that was released of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old unarmed Black man who was beaten to death by five Memphis police officers. And what’s even more disturbing is that all five officers charged with his murder are Black.
Of course, there have been many other incidents of police brutality involving Black officers in the past. For instance, three of the six officers charged in Freddie Gray’s death in Baltimore were Black. At that time, Baltimore had a Black mayor and a majority-Black police force, and it had had several Black police chiefs over the years.
One of the four cops convicted in the murder of George Floyd was Black. And Rodney King, in his 2012 memoir, talked about being abused by both White and Black officers alike.
As a society, we don’t talk enough about how those from marginalized groups can align themselves with the oppressive class. There is no better example of this than police culture. Police often repeat the mantra that the only race among police officers is blue.
Sociologist Peter C. Moskos notes in his 2008 study that no matter their race, police officers share a common identity based on conservative social beliefs, opposition to ghetto culture, dangerous work conditions, irregular hours, and excessive paperwork. (Moskos, 2008) The Washington Post summed it up nicely:
“Loyalty is a hallmark of police work — on display whenever officers drive across the country to pay respects to their fallen brothers and sisters. The occupation’s shift work, with long hours and heightened levels of risk, engenders that loyalty; powerful unions help enforce it. And officers seen as not sufficiently loyal to their colleagues can pay a steep price.”
Professor Jody Armour, a University of Southern California law professor who studies racial justice, told The New York Times, “[W]hen you put on that blue uniform, it often becomes the primary identity that drowns out any other identities that might compete with it.”
That being said, Blacks in policing have a distinct history that differs from White police officers.
The history of Black police officers prior to the early 1970s
The late Leon Litwak wrote a spectacular book, Trouble in Mind, which chronicles the Black experience in the American South. He writes that when Congress wrote the equal protection and due-process clauses into the Constitution in 1866, “Black Southerners achieved a semblance of equal justice, particularly in those regions where they exercised political power.” (Litwack, 1998) In some states and cities, they occupied judicial posts and served as sheriffs, chiefs of police, and policemen.
In cities such as New Orleans, Mobile, and Charleston, Black police officers achieved a level of equality that they would not achieve anywhere in the nation until the 1960s. (Dulaney, 1997) With only a few exceptions, the Black police officers who were hired during Reconstruction arrested Whites and worked in all areas of the cities where they served. (Dulaney, 1997) But these triumphs proved short-lived.
Economic dependence, political setbacks, and unpunished White violence took their toll. White Southerners moved on every front to solidify their supremacy over Black lives, and this reassertion of power became evident in the racial makeup of police forces. For instance, in the postbellum South, Blacks in New Orleans were appointed to the police in large numbers. But following the departure of Northern troops and the return of local civilian rule, the number of Black police officers in New Orleans dropped precipitously from 177 in 1870 to 27 in 1880, and from 25 in 1890 to 5 in 1900. (Dulaney, 1997) Between 1910 and 1950, there were no Black policemen in New Orleans. (Moskos, 2008)
By 1910, African Americans had literally disappeared from southern police forces. There was not a single Black police officer in the Deep South States of South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. (Dulaney, 1997) In the South, only four Texas cities — Houston, Austin, Galveston, and San Antonio — and Knoxville, Tennessee, continued to employ African Americans as police officers. (Dulaney, 1997) But even in these cities, they often did not wear uniforms, they could not arrest Whites, and they worked exclusively in Black neighborhoods. (Dulaney, 1997)
Outside the South, the experience of Black police officers was only slightly less restricted. Token appointments of Blacks were made in Northern police departments in the 1870s. For example, in 1872, a Republican mayor in Chicago appointed the first Black policeman in the North. In 1880, the Republicans won the mayor’s office again, resulting in the appointment of four more Black policemen. (Williams & Murphy, 1988) By 1894, there were 23 Black policemen in Chicago.
34 Blacks were appointed in other cities in the North soon after those in Chicago: in Washington, D.C., in 1874; in Indianapolis in 1876; in Cleveland in 1881; and in Boston in 1885. (Williams & Murphy, 1988) By 1910, the United States Census Bureau reported 576 Blacks serving as police officers in the U.S., most of whom were employed in northern cities. (Dulaney, 1997) But these officers were not on equal footing with White officers. Many worked in plain clothes — in part not to offend the sensibilities of racist Whites — and were assigned to only Black neighborhoods, a practice adopted in most departments that hired Blacks at that time.
In Chicago, Black officers were largely confined to the Southside districts; in St. Louis, the “Black beats” ranged from the central downtown area to the Northside. Los Angeles established a special “Black watch” for the predominantly Black Newton Station district. These policies were designed to control Black communities, while at the same time keeping Black policemen out of White communities. (Williams & Murphy, 1988)
Most departments, to appease the racial attitudes of Whites, did not allow Black officers to arrest Whites. Even as late as 1961, a study reported by the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice found that 31 percent of the departments surveyed restricted the right of Blacks to make felony arrests; the power of Black officers to make misdemeanor arrests was even more limited. (Williams & Murphy, 1988)
Atlanta’s police force integrated grudgingly in 1948. Howard Baugh, Sr. (1924–2007) was an Atlanta police officer who joined the force in 1952, just four years after the city had hired its first eight African American police officers. In 1955, Baugh became the first Black officer to make detective. He subsequently became the first African American on the force promoted to sergeant, lieutenant, and captain. He ultimately became the first Black assistant chief of the Department. (Atlanta History Center)
But during much of his time on the job, it was the department’s unofficial policy that Baugh and his fellow Black officers could not arrest White people. They had to call in a White officer to do so. (Avila et al., 2006) The Black officers also were not permitted to drive squad cars, patrol White neighborhoods, or wear their uniforms to or from work. (Mullen et al., 2018) Nor could they use the same locker room as their White counterparts, but instead had to change into uniforms at the local YMCA. They were even forced to use the building’s side entrance — the main entrance was reserved for Whites only. (Avila et al., 2006)
Throughout American history, there were relatively few Black police officers until well into the twentieth century. At the beginning of the 1970s, police departments in the United States were still overwhelmingly White and overwhelmingly male. But that gradually began to change when Black constituencies began to exercise voting power to put Black leaders in positions of power.
Between 1969 and 1974, the number of Black elected officials in the United States increased by a whopping 120 percent to include 16 congressional representatives and 104 mayors. (Thomas, 2013) By 1974, Blacks were mayors of Los Angeles, Atlanta, Newark, Raleigh, Gary, and Detroit, which together contained 5.5 million people. (Thomas, 2013)
Once Black mayors took over the reins in city governments, they set about the task of diversifying their police departments. By 1974, it was estimated that there were 25,000 black policemen in the United States — roughly 25 percent more than in 1969. (Stevens, 1974) African Americans, who accounted for 11 percent of the general population, now made up about 5 percent of the nation’s law‐enforcement establishment. (Stevens, 1974) This increase was especially evident in Detroit where in 1973, Coleman A. Young was elected as the city’s first African American mayor, based largely on his pledge to diversify the police force and reduce police brutality.
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References
Atlanta History Center. (n.d.). Howard Baugh. Umbra Search African American History. Retrieved February 6, 2023, from https://www.umbrasearch.org/catalog/dc4b760a7328d22789503d20d8cd7741202d9525
Avila, J., Tribolet , B., & Setrakian, L. (2006, February 8). Georgia Lawmaker Fights for Black Officers’ Rights. ABC News. Retrieved February 6, 2023, from https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/BlackHistory/story?id=1594504&page=1
Boissoneault, L. (2017, July 26). Understanding Detroit’s 1967 Upheaval 50 Years Later. Smithsonian Magazine.
Darden, J. T., & Thomas, R. W. (2013). In “Detroit: Race riots, racial conflicts, and efforts to bridge the Racial Divide”. essay, Michigan State University Press.
Dulaney, W. M. (1997). Black Police in America. Indiana University Press.
Fine, S. (2012). Violence in the Model City the Cavanagh Administration, race relations, and the Detroit riot of 1967. Michigan State University Press.
Kresnak, J. (1980). City Police: A Past of Racism. In S. McGehee & S. Watson (Eds.), Blacks in Detroit: A Reprint of Articles from the Detroit Free Press December 1980. essay, Detroit Free Press.
Litwack, L. (1998). Trouble in mind. Vintage.
Moskos, P. C. (2008). Two Shades of Blue: Black and White in the Blue Brotherhood. Law Enforcement Executive Forum.
Mullen, T. (2018, July 12). Black in blue: Atlanta’s first African American police officers were vanguards of the Civil Rights Movement. Atlanta Magazine. Retrieved February 6, 2023, from https://www.atlantamagazine.com/great-reads/black-blue-atlantas-first-african-american-police-officers-vanguards-civil-rights-movement/
Stevens, W. K. (1974, August 10). Black Policemen Bring Reforms. The New York Times.
Thomas, J. M. (2013). In Redevelopment and race planning a finer city in postwar Detroit. essay, Wayne State University Press.
Williams, H., & Murphy, P. V. (1988). The Evolving Strategy of Police: A Minority View. In Perspectives on Policing. essay, N.I.J.
