The Color of the Third Degree

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Focusing on the hidden history of police torture in the Jim Crow South, this book reveals how law enforcement used violent methods to extract confessions from black suspects, especially as public lynchings declined. Drawing on neglected archival sources, it highlights the systemic nature of racial oppression and the struggle of black communities and the NAACP to combat these brutal practices through activism and legal challenges. Despite their efforts, police torture continued to be a pervasive tool of racial control into the late twentieth century.