The Afro-American Patrolmen’s League and Community Protection in Chicago (1968-1983)

11 Mar 2024

Happening On 14/03/2024

Dr Matthew O'Brien, University College Dublin (UCD)

School of History, UCC

Thursday 14 March 2024, 16:00 (4 PM)

The paper will be delivered through MS Teams. To get a Teams link, please, contact Dr Jérôme aan de Wiel, School of History, UCC: j.aandewiel@ucc.ie 

Paper In the wake of the protests that punctuated the 1968 Democratic National Convention, spectators around the world quickly became familiarised with the Chicago Police Department’s use of excessive force, and of Mayor Daley’s infamous “shoot to kill” order that was issued to cease the growing social disquiet. Earlier that same year, a group of community conscious Black police officers banded together to form the Afro-American Patrolmen’s League (AAPL). Risking their careers by acting as brokers between Chicago’s Black communities and the Chicago Police Department, the AAPL developed strategies and sophisticated systems that were contrived to end police brutality in the city. Drawing from materials gathered at the African American Police League records at the Chicago History Museum, this lecture offers insights into the ways in which the AAPL worked to foster awareness and education among those communities that were beleaguered by police violence.

Furthermore, this lecture examines some of the crucial infrastructure that the AAPL created to foster greater accountability from the police department, such as the Complaint and Referral Service and League to Improve the Community. Dr Matthew O’Brien is a recent PhD graduate of University College Dublin. His PhD research, funded by the Irish Research Council and Fulbright Commission of Ireland, focused on the ways in which grassroots activists in Chicago used prisms of political education to pursue Black empowerment between the years 1968 and 1983. Furthermore, this research interrogates the development of the Black Power Movement, bringing together marginalised forces and more mainstream elements in the broader struggle for Black liberation. Dr O’Brien is the current treasurer of the Oral History Network of Ireland and has recently worked as an oral historian on the European Regional Development Fund project, Costal Uplands: Heritage and Tourism. Currently, Dr O’Brien is lecturing in oral history and a series of graduate and undergraduate writing modules at UCD while working on postdoctoral applications to convert his PhD into a publishable manuscript.