One Righteous Man: Samuel Battle and the Shattering of the Color Line in New York

Winner of the Christopher Award and the New York City Book Award

Winner of the 2016 Wheatley Book Award in Nonfiction

A history of African Americans in New York City from the 1910s to 1960, told through the life of Samuel Battle, the New York Police Department’s first black officer.
 
When Samuel Battle broke the color line as New York City’s first African American cop in the second decade of the twentieth century, he had to fear his racist colleagues a…