Bluecoated Terror

Jeffrey S. Adler is Professor of History and Criminology and Distinguished Teaching Scholar at the University of Florida, where his research and teaching focus on the history of American violence, law, and race relations.

• ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1 • “Any Slight from a Negro Is a Humiliation That Must Be Instantly Revenged” 2 • “At No Time in the History of Our State Has White Supremacy Been in Greater Danger” 3 • “I Told the Officers to Go Ahead and Kill Me, as They Had Already Half Killed Me” 4 • Buttercup Burns, Bulldog Johnny Grosch, and the Killer Twins 5 • “Negroes Are Willing to Die Rather Than Submit to the White Man’s Terror” Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

"Historian and criminologist Adler reveals how today’s police brutality against African Americans has its roots in the racialized policing of nearly a century ago. Focusing on race-based law enforcement policies and practices during the1920s and 1930s, Adler marshals an extraordinary array of documents—crime surveys, homicide witness transcripts, autopsy reports, newspaper articles—to vividly illustrate the racial disparities in American criminal justice in New Orleans and throughout the urban South. . . . Highly recommended."