Uncontrollable Blackness: African American Men and Criminality in Jim Crow New York

"In the wake of emancipation, black men in northern urban centers like New York faced economic isolation, marginalization, and racial violence. In response, some of those men opted to participate in underground economies, to protect themselves when law enforcement failed to do so, and to exert control over public space through force. Douglas J. Flowe traces how public racial violence, segregation in housing and leisure, and criminal stigmatization in popular culture and media fostered a sense of distress, isolation, and nihilism that made crime and violence seem like viable recourses in the face of white supremacy. He examines self-defense against state violence, crimes committed within black social spaces and intimate relationships, and the contest of white and black masculinity"--

"In the wake of emancipation, black men in northern urban centers like New York faced economic isolation, marginalization, and racial violence. In response, some of those men opted to participate in underground economies, to protect themselves when law enforcement failed to do so, and to exert control over public space through force. Douglas J. Flowe traces how public racial violence, segregation in housing and leisure, and criminal stigmatization in popular culture and media fostered a sense of distress, isolation, and nihilism that made crime and violence seem like viable recourses in the face of white supremacy. He examines self-defense against state violence, crimes committed within black social spaces and intimate relationships, and the contest of white and black masculinity"--Publisher's description

No sunshine in the city : crime, control, and the crucible of public space -- Sex, blood, guns, and gambling : pleasure, profit, and peril in New York City's black saloons -- White women forced to live in negro dives : Roosevelt Sharp's abduction trial and the contested terrain of white women's bodies -- To let her know she did me wrong : illegality, domestic authority, and the politics of black intimacy -- Been here long enough : prison, parole, and the pursuit of a better life in black imagination.