Wildcat of the Streets - (Politics and Culture in Modern America) by Michael Stauch (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

How Black youth in Detroit made claims for political equality over and against the new order of community policing

The criminalization of Black youth was central to policing in urban America during the civil rights era and continued in Detroit even after the rise of Black political control in the 1970s. Wildcat of the Streets documents how the "community policing" approach of Mayor Coleman Young (1974-1993)--including neighborhood police stations, affirmative action hiring policies, and public participation in law enforcement initiatives--transformed Detroit, long considered the nation's symbol of racial inequality and urban crisis, into a crucial site of experimentation in policing while continuing to subject many Black Detroiters to police brutality and repression.

In response, young people in the 1970s and 1980s drew on the city's storied history of labor radicalism as well as contemporary shopfloor struggles to wage a "wildcat of the streets," consisting of street disturbances, decentralized gang activity, and complex organizations of the informal economy. In this revelatory new history of the social life of cities, Michael Stauch mines a series of evocative interviews conducted with the participants to trace how Black youth made claims for political equality over and against the new order of community policing.

Centering the perspective of criminalized and crime-committing young people, Wildcat of the Streets is an original interpretation of police reform, the long struggle for Black liberation, and the politics of cities in the age of community policing.

Review Quotes

"Academically rigorous and politically radical, Michael Stauch has crafted a nuanced history of the tragic failure of police reform in the United States and a spirited case for why the police must instead be abolished. Wildcat of the Streets is a must read for historians, activists, and anyone seeking to escape the downward spiral of capitalist society and build a better world."-- "Jarrod Shanahan, author of Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage"

"Stauch deftly plumbs the intricacy of the informal economy and its impact on society at large. Wildcat of the Streets is an engrossing study of a modern American city in the throes of conflict."-- "Herb Boyd, author of Black Detroit: A People's History of Self-Determination"

About the Author

Michael Stauch is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Toledo.