Overview

Bridging the River of Hatred portrays the career of George Clifton Edwards, Jr., Detroit's visionary police commissioner. Bridging the River of Hatred portrays the career of George Clifton Edwards, Jr., Detroit's visionary police commissioner whose efforts to bring racial equality, minority recruiting, and community policing to Detroit's police department in the early 1960s met with much controversy within the city's administration. At a crucial time when the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum and hostility between urban police forces and African Americans was close to eruption, Edwards chose solving racial and urban problems as his mission. Incorporating material from a manuscript that Edwards wrote before his death, supplemented by historical research, Stolberg provides a rare case study of problems in policing, the impoverishment of American cities, and the evolution of race relations during the turbulent 1960s. Edwards' vision and hope for Detroit gives depth to the national view of Detroit as a symbol of urban decline and offers lessons to be applied to current social and urban problems.

Full Product Details

9780814325735

Table of Contents

Reviews

Stolberg's compelling book tells the story of the political career of George Edwards. Focusing on Edwards's term as police commissioner for Detroit, the author closely examines the strengths and weaknesses of liberalism as applied to community relations in the city.... The strength of this book is that it shows that determined leadership can make a difference.... Students of urban affairs, African American history, and law enforcement can gain valuable insights from this work. - Choice In her book, Ms. Stolberg lets us meet Judge Edwards in a glorious testimony to his early works while at the same time providing a scholarly work for those studying American racial politics from our century's midpoint. - The Cincinnati Post

Stolberg's compelling book tells the story of the political career of George Edwards. Focusing on Edwards's term as police commissioner for Detroit, the author closely examines the strengths and weaknesses of liberalism as applied to community relations in the city.... The strength of this book is that it shows that determined leadership can make a difference.... Students of urban affairs, African American history, and law enforcement can gain valuable insights from this work. - Choice In her book, Ms. Stolberg lets us meet Judge Edwards in a glorious testimony to his early works while at the same time providing a scholarly work for those studying American racial politics from our century's midpoint. - The Cincinnati Post

Author Information

Mary M. Stolberg, a historian and a former reporter for the Pittsburgh Press, devotes her time to writing. She is the author of Fighting Organized Crime (Northeastern University Press, 1995) and Looking Beyond Race: The Life of Otis Milton Smith (Wayne State University Press, 2000).

Tab Content 6

Countries Available