Access Instantly The Algiers Motel Incident Brought To You By John Hersey Shared As Electronic Text

This book confirms for me that we haven't really progressed much from when this incident took place,
A black teenager charged with stealingfrom a newsboy was givenyears in prison, Isn't that radically extreme Plus he was severely beaten by police officers,
"If you got enough money you can do just about anything you want to do in the world, " Still true today.
" the white man's justice, in a Northern city just as much as in Mississippi, almost invariably prefers the unreliable testimony of whites to the unreliable testimony of blacks, "
Several senseless killings and beatings occurred during this incident, Totally out of control actions on the part of police and other law enforcement, And even with testimony and identifications, justice was NOT served, So very sad. But even sadder is the fact that this type of thing still happens, Scary to think things like this happen, A harrowing reconstruction of the brutal torture and killing of three young black men by police during theDetroit riots, Police stormed the Algiers Motel on the suspicion that snipers were holed up there, They found among the rooms about ten young black men and two young white women, The police stripped and beat the women, calling them nigger loving whores, Police officers also beat badly the black men, and then a killing game began, One by one the men were taken by police into a room to be "killed", Most were actually not killed, with the gunshot at the last second deliberately missing, But at least one officer didn't realize it was a game,
The author interviewed survivors, and family members, and police officers all to reconstruct what happened,
Of course justice was denied, as the cases against the police officers were blocked and sabotaged by judges and prosecutors both,
Finishing this book as the jury deliberates on the verdict of the Minneapolis officer who killed George Floyd made me wonder how much has changed, There was real fear that the murderous officer would be found not guilty,
I first read Hiroshima by Hersey as it appeared in the New Yorker Book of War Stories, It was gripping and horrifying, I next read his slim volume of reporting from the fighting on Guadalcanal Into the Valley, Taken as a trilogy these three provide quite a journey through isolated parts of US history that nonetheless make of a kind of a whole, I am left wanting to read all his non fiction, and to give his fiction a try, Hersey backgrounds himself entirely, allowing participants in this chapter of theDetroit riots speak for themselves, The events of that night have never been definitively laid out, and Hersey, while letting his readers decide for themselves what happened that night and who was at fault, gives those at fault just enough space to convict themselves.
A fascinating approach to illuminating events shrouded in violence, mystery and selfinterest, I want to start with this book is amazing for everyone, It taught me so much even though its very emotional or a hard to follow John Herseys writing, However, I dont want to spoil too much but it talks about how there is no equal justice and about police brutality, There is too many violence in the book and also many trues, Its a wonderful book and not very surprising, youll know what I mean once you read it, I highly recommended for those who want to learn more about the truth this book speaks it all, Disturbing and appalling. During riots in Detroit in the summer of, police, National Guard, and private security mounted an allout assault on a motel, rounded up the twelve guests, and proceeded to beat them all even breaking a rifle stock over one mans head, rip the clothes off two women, and kill three of the men.
The crux of the story: the cops and National Guard were white and the guests were mostly black except for the two women, This book details ingrained racism where the whites dont even know theyre racist, they just know that this is the way white cops treat black people,

The events at the Algiers Motel that July night were made into a powerful movie by Kathryn Bigelow, “Detroit, ” Id been wanting to read this since I saw the movie three years ago,

The book is a collection of interviews, police reports, and court transcripts, Some have criticized the format as being too chaotic but I think it mirrors the chaos of Detroit during those days, and the Algiers Motel that night,

Highly recommended. Written in, it is disturbing that so many of the themes in Hersey's book still ring true, Hersey focuses on the killings that took place at the Algiers Motel during the Detroit riots, Three of thedeaths during the riots took place on one night in which it seems no one either knows or will tell the truth about what happened,

I opted to read this book before watching the movie, "Detroit" as I wanted some background before seeing a movie that may sensationalize the events that took place at the Algiers Motel.
I really don't know if I can say that I have a better understanding of the events as Hersey's book is sometimes disjointed with the fragmented style he chose to use in this book.
It also bothered me that Hersey opted to quote the victims' family members and individuals present verbatim, It seemed as if he was trying to portray them as uneducated, Perhaps he quoted everyone verbatim and all the police officers and other individuals involved spoke perfect English, It was really a sticking point for me though,

Overall, I enjoyed this book and it has made me think how little has changed since these riots in thes between police and members of the African American community.
We continue to see riots, albeit not to this magnitude, when one race suffers brutality at the hands of those who are meant to protect them, This book also gave me insight to those who are effected by the brutality, a glimpse into the anger and distrust some have toward the police, Some of us were blessed to grow up knowing the police were our friends and looking up to them in Hersey's book you see a different side where individuals are targeted simply because of their family members and learn at a young age that the police are out to get you.
Very much worth revisiting if you've read it beforevery much worth discovering if you haven't, A tense and meticulously told true crime story with real journalistic care about a profile act of racial violence with more than a little police complicity in Detroit in and around theriots.


Hersey was an interesting and versatile writer, His portfolio is diverseboth lyrical and pragmatic, but in this work he opened important doors for the hardedged reporting style of prose into the new more complex sociological terrain of the Civil Rights/there's a riot goin' on era.


This book can be enjoyed as a standalone novel, . . or as part of the "muckraking" social advocacy stream in American literature, which dates back in it strength to thes,

I think Hersey is a writer, famous in his day, who deserves reappraisal, He did a lot of different things well, Not easily categorized in the totality of his work, which may be why he's not appreciated as much as he should be, Thoughtful, provocative. A little disjointed in terms of structure, Better on rereading than I'd remembered, The fragmented presentationRashomon in the midst of theDetroit riotworks nicely, Great introductions by historians Danielle McGuire and Thomas Sugroe, This book is based on events that happened during the Detroit riot of July, I wasyears old, a college student in Ann Arbor, My parents lived at Woodward Avenue and Fourteen Mile Road in the white suburb of Royal Oak, Would the riot reach beyond the Detroit city limit of Eight Mile Road People thought it might and they paid attention fearfully, This book was rushed to print in January, Author John Hersey initially was thinking about race riots in general, then examining the Detroit riot in particular, then ultimately the Algiers Motel incident specifically,

As I explored Detroits riot in those first weeks, the incident at the Algiers Motel kept insisting upon attention, and eventually I determined to focus on it.
The episode contained all the mythic themes of racial strife in the United States: the arm of the law taking the law into its own hands interracial sex the subtle poison of racist thinking by “decent” men who deny that they are racists the societal limbo into which, ever since slavery, so many young black men have been driven in our country ambiguous justice in the courts and the devastation in both black and white human lives that follows in the wake of violence as surely as ruinous and indiscriminate flood after torrents.

I know John Hersey best as the author of the book sitelinkHiroshima, the nonfiction story of the atomic bombing by the United States of that city in Japan in.
I take his reporting as accurate and to the point, He writes early in this book that

Perhaps the whole point of this book is that every white person on the country is in some degree guilty of the crimes committed at the Algiers.

This book was publishedyears ago, in, That event is part of my life, In selecting this book, I looked forward to being sensitized and to getting the point,

Slightly more than halfway through the book author John Hersey speculates why the three young men were shot and killed at the Algiers Motel:

, . . as it turned out the boys were not executed a snipers at all, They were executed for being thought to be pimps, for being considered punks, for making out with white girls, for being in some vague way killers of a white cop named Jerry Olshove, for running riot for being, after all and all, black young men and part of the black rage of the time.

The content of the book is predominantly vignettes of events and snippets of interviews, statements and court hearings that might be likened to a series of short clips in a documentary film.


The myth of theDetroit riot was that it was the Great Sniper Battle involvingblocks in the heart of the city, Journalists writing for the Detroit Free Press concluded that

“Both the number of snipers active in the riot area and the danger that snipers presented were vastly overstated.
Only one sniper is among the riot victims and only three of the victims may possibly have been killed by snipers, two of them doubtful, In all, somepersons were arrested and charged with sniping” out of,arrested altogether,

The incident at the Algiers Motel began with a broadcast on police radio that the “Army was under heavy fire,” a description that was untrue, But really the incident was spawned by the racism and injustice that was omnipresent In Detroit, Michigan in the summer of, My experience growing up in

a white suburb both insulated me from the injustice of racism while also sensitizing me to the inequity explicit in the racial divide, I came into my adulthood knowing that as a white male I benefited from racism and sexism that gave me unearned power,

I think that The Algiers Motel Incident is an important documentation of injustice that made it a significant wakeup call when it was published fortyfive years ago within a year of the incident.
To me it seems more historic, examining issues that seem to need little argumentation these years later to be accepted as true and valid, But maybe that is more obvious and accurate for me than for the portion of society that may still hold firmly to its racism and sexism,

I hope there are people who think that thest century has things to learn from this book, At least someone at the Johns Hopkins University Press thought enough of it to reissue it in, almost thirty years after it was first published, I am wondering what college courses have this book as required or optional reading, In short, I am pleased that this book was reissued and is potentially still in use for educational purposes, What more could an author hope Although I suppose in the publishing world a reissueyears ago is ancient history about a book that some might say is about even more ancient history.


I am giving The Algiers Motel Incident four although it turned out that I had already learned the lessons and felt the guilt that was promised by the author.
Maybe my four will encourage a couple of people to pick up and read the reissued trade paperback edition,
.