The Algiers Motel Incident - Softcover

Hersey, Prof John; Hersey, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801857775 ISBN 13: 9780801857775

Publisher: JHUP, 1997

Synopsis

"Hersey's book is based on months of personal investigation and contains evidence never before made public. He ransacked every available piece of documentation. Thus armed, he tried to work out a tentative scenario of events and, more important, used his data to build up what may be the truest picture yet of the white policeman's role in the ghettos . . . His collage of interviews, fact, and intuition . . . jells into a forceful dossier against racism in the U.S. system of justice."- R.A. Sokolov, Newsweek Thirty years ago, three black men were killed and nine other people brutally beaten by, as John Hersey describes it in The Algiers Motel Incident, an "aggregate of Detroit police, Michigan State Troopers, National Guardsmen, and private guards who had been directed to the scene." Responding to a telephoned report of sniping, the police group invaded the Algiers Motel and interrogated ten black men and two white women, none of whom were armed, for an hour. By the time the interrogators left, three men had been shot to death and the others, including the women, beaten.

About this title

Book Description:

From the author of "Hiroshima"―the shameful story of racial murder in 1967 Detroit.

From the Back Cover:

Thirty years ago, in the midst of the 1967 riots that rocked Detroit, the Algiers Motel was the site of a brutal confrontation. Three black men were killed and nine others were brutally beaten by, as John Hersey describes it in The Algiers Motel Incident, an "aggregate of Detroit police, Michigan state troopers, national guardsmen, and private guards". Responding to a telephoned report of sniping, the police group invaded the Algiers Motel and interrogated ten black men and two white women, none of whom were armed, for an hour. By the time the interrogators had left, the three men had been shot to death and the others, including the women, beaten. Hersey spent months interviewing those involved in the incident and sorting out the ensuing court proceedings in order to demonstrate that there had in fact been no sniping and that the three black men were murdered "for being thought to be pimps, for being considered punks, for making out with white girls ... for being, all in all, black young men and part of the black rage of the time".

About this edition

• Publisher: JHUP
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0801857775
• ISBN 13: 9780801857775
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 424