The Algiers Motel Incident by John Hersey
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.
Hersey's extremely careful and cogent account of the Algiers Motel incident does not suggest that [the law enforcement officers involved] conspired to do anything.. It suggests strongly the contrary: that they were doing what came naturally to them, and doing it with gusto. -- Edgar Z. Friedenberg New York Review of Books This is a brilliant book, a tour de force. American Sociological Review 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
John Hersey won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for his first novel, A Bell for Adano. He is the author of Hiroshima and many novels, including The Wall, The Child Buyer, Under the Eye of the Storm, and Blues. He died in 1993. Thomas Sugrue is an assistant professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780801857775 |
| ISBN 10 | 0801857775 |
| Title | The Algiers Motel Incident |
| Author | John Hersey |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Johns Hopkins University Press |
| Year published | 1997-12-19 |
| Number of pages | 418 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |