The eruption of mass protests in the wake of the authorities murders of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in NEW YORK have challenged the impunity with which officers of regulations perform violence against dark people and punctured the illusion of the postracial America. The Black Lives Matter motion has awakened a new generation of activists.

In this stirring and insightful analysis, activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor research the historical and modern ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality such as mass incarceration and black unemployment. Within this framework, she argues that new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader press for black liberation.