title: One Righteous Man: Samuel Battle and the Shattering of the Color Line in New York
author:  Arthur Browne 
description: An especially timely book<br /><i>Kirkus Reviews<br /><br /></i>The author provides a rich overview of the civil rights struggle in Gotham, and its place in the city's cultural and political history....Of interest, and recommended for, readers of civil rights histories.<br /><i>Library Journal<br /><br /></i>Arthur Browne, a New York-based journalist, writes movingly of Battles fight not only to enter the NYPD but to succeed within it. . . . Although Battle died in 1966 without having seen his story published, its impossible not to feel how much he would have appreciated Browns work, which wraps the mans own words in a reporters thorough, lively accounting of a life well lived.<br /><i>The Boston Globe</i><br /><br />The magnificentand movingstory of the first black New York City copstruggling valiantly for dignity in a world more often interested in his marginalization (or worse)forming a tragic but ultimately heroic understanding of the inner workings of the greatest city on earth.<br /> Ken Burns<br /><br />Youd expect a newspaper editor with a Pulitzer to be up to speed on the news, and nobody knows New York better. Whats impressive about Arthur Brownes book is how scrupulous he is in drawing on an unpublished biography by Langston Hughes, while contributing his own vivid portrait of a hero up against mobsters, corrupt pols, and imminent violence.<br />Harold Evans, author of <i>The American Century</i><br /><br /><i>One Righteous Man</i> is one righteous biographyat times chilling in its account of Samuel Battles ordeal as a key black pioneer in Manhattan but ultimately inspiring as a record of his indomitable spirit. Brownes book is also timely today as a commentary on the tangled webs of ethnicity and racism in the evolution of New Yorks Finest.<br />Arnold Rampersad, author of<i>The Life of Langston Hughes</i><br /><br />The relationship between the police and the community is one of the most important issues of our timeand so is the idea that the police are the public and the public are the police,as Sir Robert Peel wrote in 1829. Sam Battle's towering example helped the NYPD get closer to that ideal. Today we look more like the city we serve than ever before, but Arthur Browne's terrific book reminds us that the journey to get here wasn't easy, and would have been impossible without a pioneer and hero like Sam Battle.<br />William J. Bratton,Police Commissioner, NYPD<br /><br />This is a riveting and important read. Samuel Battles story reminds us that when it comes to fighting crime, empathy and respect are equally as powerful as batons and guns. <i>One Righteous Man</i> is an especially relevant contribution to our national conversation about how to best ensure every officer upholds the oath to protect and serve every American.<br />Ben Jealous, former president and CEO of the NAACP<br /><br />Now, thanks to Mr. Brownes fine work, Battle can take his place alongside Jackie Robinson and many others in the ranks of African-Americans who rammed open the doors that thousands more have since walked through, seldom knowing who made it possible.<br />Bryan Burrough, <i>The Wall Street Journal</i><br /><br />What is seemingly about a pioneering trailblazer is really Arthur Brownes sweeping treatise on the experiences of African-Americans from slavery to freedom, and it is very impressive in the rich detail and context in which he situates not only Samuel Battle but also Samuel Battles parents and grandparents going back to the Revolutionary period.<br />Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
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  # The Red One
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Jack London
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ###  THE RED ONE
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  THERE it was! The abrupt liberation of sound! As he timed it with
  
  
  his watch, Bassett likened it to the trump of an archangel. Walls
  
  
  of cities, he meditated, might well fall down before so vast and
  
  
  compelling a summons. For the thousandth time vainly he tried to
  
  
  analyse the tone-quality of that enormous peal that dominated the
  
  
  land far into the strong-holds of the surrounding tribes. The
  
  
  mountain gorge which was its source rang to the rising tide of it
  
  
  until it brimmed over and flooded earth and sky and air. With the
  
  
  wantonness of a sick man's fancy, he likened it to the mighty cry
  
  
  of some Titan of the Elder World vexed with misery or wrath.
  
  
  Higher and higher it arose, challenging and demanding in such
  
  
  profounds of volume that it seemed intended for ears beyond the
  
  
  narrow confines of 