Blacks and Cops
Cop Under Fire: Moving Beyond Hashtags of Race, Crime, & Politics for a Better America, by Sheriff David Clarke, Jr., Franklin, Tennessee: Worthy Books, 2017, 256 pages, hardcover.
Inspired by the clenched-fist salute at the 1968 Olympics by two medal-winning athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, 13-year-old David Clarke decided to raise his own clenched fist on his front yard in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as a police cruiser drove by. To his apparent surprise, the car stopped, and two officers got out. As they approached young Clarke, a black teenager, he thought perhaps he had not done something very smart.
Fortunately, his father, a Korean War veteran and an employee of the post office, bounded out of the house, wondering why a patrol car stopped in front of his home. The first officer said that his son had waved them down, and they thought he needed help, while the second one was more honest: “Actually, he raised his fist.”
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