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In the Belly of the Beast: Black Policemen Combat Police Brutality in Chicago, 1968-1983

Spring January 2013

From the Journal of African American History 

Agyepong details the historical account of how Black police officers in Chicago Police Department organized to combat the department’s routine mistreatment of the city’s Black communities. In 1968, a small group of officers founded the Afro-American Patrolman’s League (AAPL). They saw their mission as fighting racist policing from inside the department. The AAPL helped Black applicants to the police department, held community seminars, created a service to help Black Chicagoans report police brutality, and publicized cases of abuse that the department might otherwise have kept quiet.