Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
Students explore three documents produced in the wake of three major episodes of racial violence (1919, 1967, 2014) to understand the long trajectory of police violence in Black communities.

Resources for middle and high school classrooms on the history of policing in the United States.

Introduce high school students to people’s history with these podcasts.

Book — Non-Fiction. By Elizabeth Hinton. 2021. 224 pages.
The rebellion and movement for Black lives of 2020 had clear precursors, this book explains, and any attempt to understand that crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past.

The New York City Tompkins Square Riot occurred during a devastating economic depression.

Two African American brothers — Charles and Alphonso Ferguson — were shot and killed by a white police officer in the segregated Freeport neighborhood of Long Island, New York.

Police arrived at the Stonewall Inn and arrested anyone found to be cross-dressing, resulting in mayhem and what are now referred to as the Stonewall Riots. This was a milestone in a long history of LGBTQ+ activism.

The New York Police Department falsely accused four African American teenagers and one Latino teenager who became known as the “Central Park Five.”

Sean Bell was murdered by New York City police on the day before his wedding.