THE MAN WHO BEAT CLOUT CITY

by Robert McClory ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 30, 1977

McClory, a white staffer on the black Chicago Daily Defender, has a dandy David and Goliath story to recount. Renault Robinson, a black Chicago cop and the moving force behind the Afro-American Patrolmen's League, is David. The Chicago police department, Superintendent James B. Conlisk, Jr., and Mayor Daley are stand-ins for Goliath. Their confrontation spans eight years, from the 1968 founding of the AAPL to the 1976 decision of a federal judge that the hiring and promotion practices of the Chicago police 'force were discriminatory: no more revenue-sharing funds for that city until a tough quota system for hiring minorities had been implemented. McClory, whose respect for Robinson borders on adulation, calls him ""the most consistently bothersome burr in Daley's saddle."" The reprisals suffered by the black cops of the AAPL are familiar reading: threatening phone calls, surveillance, trumped-up disciplinary charges, suspension. Through it all, AAPL members battled for review boards in police brutality cases and against such Daleyesque innovations as ""Operation Shotgun."" Eventually the Justice Department entered the case and Daley's minions took a shellacking. It's a simple story of courage which seems like a throwback to the civil rights battles of the 1960s. McClory tells it with the righteousness of one who has experienced the arm-twisting of ""the most powerful citadel of local government in the nation"" at first hand.

Pub Date: Nov. 30, 1977

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Swallow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1977

Categories: NONFICTION