The outrage over the senseless killings of black men and women at the hands of law enforcement has led to a renewed conversation about race in America, where black people are more likely than whites to be arrested for minor crimes, to be dealt harsher sentences and to be more unfairly impacted by their criminal records. Yet the criminal justice system is staffed by thousands of black police officers, judges, corrections officers and prosecutors. Forman examines the tragic roots of the war on crime, showing how tougher laws and harsher responses were proposed by the nation’s first black mayors, police chiefs and city council members. When poverty, crime, drug addiction and violence were on the rise, their stringent law-and-order tactics were seen as necessary to protect and heal these communities. In heartbreaking detail, Forman reveals how incremental steps taken in the name of the civil rights movement gradually eroded the rights and opportunities of the very people they were meant to help.