Anti-Brutality Activism and Neighborhood Anti-Crime Activism During the 1970s

Anti-police brutality activists organized large-scale demonstrations, conducted massive voter registration drives, and motivated thousands of working-class Black voters to the polls. Anti-brutality organizers also proved adept at tapping into the broader “neighborhood movement.” During the 1970s anti-brutality activism and neighborhood anti-crime activism thus shared a common desire for decentralized police authority and increased police accountability. Recently, historians have pointed to the ways in which some Blacks activists during the 1970s mixed their calls for reductions in police violence with efforts for greater crime control. Anti-brutality and neighborhood anti-crime activists thus both sought police accountability and a decentralization of policing power. Anti-brutality activism had been the critical factor in Rizzo's removal, and Mayor Green now promised to usher in a new period of police accountability. Anti-brutality activists lacked any realistic avenue to structural police reform until 1994 when the Congressional Black Caucus finally granted the DOJ standing in “pattern and practice” police lawsuits.