The Algiers Motel Incident [Paperback]

John Hersey (Author), Thomas J. Sugrue (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 19, 1997

In 1967 three black men were killed and nine other people brutally beaten by, as John Hersey describes it in The Algiers Motel Incident, an "aggregate of Detroit police, Michigan State Troopers, National Guardsmen, and private guards who had been directed to the scene." Responding to a telephoned report of sniping, the police group invaded the Algiers Motel and interrogated ten black men and two white women, none of whom were armed, for an hour. By the time the interrogators left, three men had been shot to death and the others, including the women, beaten.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Hersey's extremely careful and cogent account of the Algiers Motel incident does not suggest that [the law enforcement officers involved] conspired to do anything... It suggests strongly the contrary: that they were doing what came naturally to them, and doing it with gusto.

(Edgar Z. Friedenberg New York Review of Books )

This is a brilliant book, a tour de force..

(American Sociological Review )

Hersey's book is based on months of personal investigation and contains evidence never before made public. He ransacked every available piece of documentation. Thus armed, he tried to work out a tentative scenario of events and, more important, used his data to build up what may be the truest picture yet of the white policeman's role in the ghettos... His collage of interviews, fact, and intuition... jells into a forceful dossier against racism in the U.S. system of justice.

(R.A. Sokolov Newsweek )

Book Description

From the author of "Hiroshima"—the shameful story of racial murder in 1967 Detroit.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 418 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (November 19, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801857775
• ISBN-13: 978-0801857775
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #397,877 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A little-known Civil Rights incident -- brilliantly written!, November 21, 2008

By 

Patrick W. Crabtree "The Old Grottomaster" (Lucasville, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Algiers Motel Incident (Paperback)

John Hersey is most widely know for his terrific fiction writing in books such as: A Single Pebble. But at the pinnacle of the American Civil Rights movement, in 1968, he came through with an astounding nonfiction detailed summary of the heinous Algiers Motel incident.

The short of the story is that three black men were murdered by Detroit police officers and/or National Guardsmen at the Algiers Hotel during a time of riots in the Motor City. The three victims were Carl Cooper, Aubury Pollard, and Fred Temple. There were plenty of witnesses including a couple of part-time prostitutes from Columbus, Ohio but, when the smoke cleared, no murder charges against the assailants were ever pursued to a logical conclusion.

If there were ever a case of sweeping a case of multiple murders under the rug, this is the poster example. Much of the commentary is follow-up on Hersey's part with the living principals of the incident and he did a terrific job with his interviews.

John Hersey (1914-1993) was born in Tientsin, China, to missionary parents. When he was ten years old he returned to the United States with his family. Then he attended the Hotchkiss School, Yale University, and performed his graduate study as a Mellon Fellow at Cambridge. He worked as a secretary for Sinclair Lewis during the summer of 1937. Later that year he began work at Time Magazine. Two years following that, he was transferred to Time's Chongqing bureau. He wrote many excellent novels during his lifetime, but his Magnum opus was non-fiction: Hiroshima.

The incident at the Algiers Motel smacked of a prior multiple murder, occurring four years prior near Philadelphia, Mississippi and the case was similarly documented at that time by William Bradford Huie: Three Lives for Mississippi.

If you have the slightest interest in the American Civil Rights movement, you'll find "The Algiers Motel Incident" compelling reading indeed. Highly recommended.

16 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The book told the untold truth about what happen that night!, November 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Algiers Motel Incident (Paperback)

I am the niece of Carl Cooper, and I am glad that John wrote the book! I was told that John may have been killed over the book. The book told the truth about white cops in those days. My grandmother (Carl Cooper's Mother) has never been the same since my uncle's death. When he died it took apart of her that she will never beable to regain.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Detroit Racism Comes Alive, February 26, 2002

By 

David Butterfield "botteville" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Algiers Motel Incident (Hardcover)

John Hersey needs no raves from me. At chronicalling the major events of the 20th century in living prose he has absolutely no peer. In this book he focuses in on the entire racist system acting in one chilling incident of the Detroit Riot of 1967, in which the police, trapping several people of mixed ethnicity tortured some of them, murdered others, and could not be brought to justice.