Fight the Power might strike one as a timely book, though Taylor’s primary objective is to demonstrate that resistance to police power has a long history spanning much of the twentieth century. The book catalogs decades of leftist activism to defend African Americans, humanize victims of police brutality, and place restraints on police authority. Taylor views the Black Lives Matter Movement, which he briefly discusses in the final chapter, as only the most recent incarnation of a protracted campaign to publicize police abuse and protect African Americans from targeted violence.
The narrative begins with a survey of exposés on police brutality published in the People’s Voice—Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell’s progressive newspaper published between 1942 and 1948. Taylor aptly views this publication as tied to the frustration about the Harlem Riots of 1935 and 1943, each of which was sparked by police assaults on people of color. The People’s...