February 10, 2020
Antipoverty activist Moore (The Other Wes Moore) presents an illuminating portrait of Baltimore in the aftermath of the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray. Arrested for unlawful possession of a knife, Gray suffered spinal cord injuries and fell into a coma during his transport to the police station. Moore picks up the story a week after Gray’s death, when a protest march erupted into violence, and chronicles a five-day period during which the city teetered between chaos and calm. He tells the story from the perspectives of seven Baltimoreans, including Tawanda Jones, whose own brother had died during “an altercation with law enforcement”; Maj. Marc Partee, the first African-American police commander of the city’s Inner Harbor district; Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby; and juvenile public defender Jenny Egan, who volunteered to support jailed protestors and ended up in her own confrontation with police. Alternating perspectives from one short chapter to the next, Moore captures the fear, anger, uncertainty, and hope of locals who saw their city fall apart and struggle to come back together. Though the perspective of Gray’s friends and family is missing, Moore provides important context in the history of Baltimore’s racial and income inequality and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement. Readers will be enthralled by this propulsive account.
March 1, 2020
How one man's death from police brutality exposed a city's pain and anger. On April 12, 2015, 25-year-old Freddie Gray was chased and searched by Baltimore policemen. When they found he had a pocketknife, they arrested him, placing him in leg irons in the back of a police van. By the time the van arrived at the station, Gray was unconscious; at the University of Maryland Medical Center, he underwent surgery for three broken vertebrae and an injured voice box. After a week in a coma, he died. Political analyst and activist Moore, head of the anti-poverty Robin Hood Foundation and a Baltimore native, closely examines the unrest that followed Gray's death by recounting the experiences of a series of people deeply affected by the events. The result is a visceral collective portrait of a community beset by poverty and injustice. "What really happened over those five days?" Moore asks. "And what do we do next?" Among the voices that the author includes are those of a black policeman hoping "to heal the disconnect between police and the West Baltimore community he grew up in"; a woman whose brother was a victim of police brutality, desperately trying to hold the perpetrators accountable; a white public defender who has devoted her career to working with juveniles; a prominent lawyer who turned to representing plaintiffs in police brutality cases; the owner of the Orioles, stunned by the protestors' violence, who came to see that his team needed to foster a relationship with the community; a well-regarded civic leader who organized a peaceful protest march that included Congressman Elijah Cummings and local ministers; and the manager of a beloved recreation venue that was protected from the uprisings by a group who made sure that everyone knew the business was black-owned. By focusing on a cross-section of individuals, Moore underscores his point that "our fates are profoundly intertwined." Gray's death, a result of the complex consequences of poverty, impels all Americans to "wrestle with the history of complicity and bias." Moving testimony to a nation's deep wounds.
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Starred review from April 1, 2020
On April 12, 2015, Baltimore resident Freddie Gray was arrested and charged with possession of a knife. According to witnesses, police officers cuffed Gray and put him in the back of a police van. However, there remains speculation as to whether officers beat or kicked him. While being transported in the van, Gray fell into a coma; he died on April 19, 2015 due to injuries to his spinal cord. The protests that followed are the focus of this latest from best-selling author Moore (The Other Wes Moore), coauthored with journalist Green. Through the perspectives of eight different people, Moore creates a tableau in which the effects of the protests and the differing relationships between citizens and the Baltimore Police Department are explored. Though it is clear that Moore believes that the police department is guilty of abuse toward poor black citizens, he still maintains a sense of balance by allowing a high-ranking African American police officer as well as white city officials to share their perspectives on the protests. VERDICT A rich, yet disturbing tapestry of modern U.S. history that succeeds in presenting how the power of protest creates situations that are at once chaotic, cathartic, and life-changing.--Leah Huey, Dekalb P.L., IL
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April 1, 2020
Moore (The Work, 2015; The Other Wes Moore, 2010) and journalist Green look at five days of rioting that shook Baltimore in 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray, an unarmed black man killed by city police. Instead of a traditional narrative, Moore and Green allow the events to unfold through the eyes of seven different people, ranging from everyday citizens who get caught up in the days' events to community and business leaders, a police captain, and a politician. The action is presented chronologically in chapters devoted to each person's experiences. The shifting perspectives give the story a broad scope, revealing how tragedy, injustice, and long-seeded socioeconomic and policing inequities ripped apart an already tense city. The escalating experiences of Greg Butler, 22, who intentionally punctured a fire hose being used by fire fighters extinguishing a burning building, and John Angelos, a Baltimore Orioles executive who tweeted support for the marches and blamed the city's unrest during decades of systemic, top-down abuse on the city's impoverished, are particularly powerful and show how the conflict impacted every stratum of the city.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)