Disturbing the Peace: Black Culture and the Police Power after Slavery
Abstract
W. C. Handy waking up to the blues on a train platform, Buddy Bolden eavesdropping on the drums at Congo Square, John Lomax taking his phonograph recorder into a southern penitentiary—Wagner gives a new account of black culture by reading these myths in the context of the black vernacular tradition’s ongoing engagement with the law.
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Studies of police power have been especially important for historians who have shown that policing was vital to the twin processes of enslavement and settler colonial elimination.
“Studies of police power (Neocleous 2000;Dubber 2005;Wagner 2009;Singh 2014;Correia and Wall 2021) have been especially important for historians who have shown that policing was vital to the twin processes of enslavement and settler colonial elimination.”
From To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States (2024) · cites this paper as Wagner 2009
Cited by
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The Mass Criminalization of Black Americans: A Historical Overview
Hinton, E., & Cook, D. (2021) · Annual Review of Criminology · doi:10.1146/annurev-criminol-060520-033306 · Cited by 247 · see citing works
To Protect and to Serve: Police, Power, and the Production of Inequality in the United States
Felker-Kantor, M. (2024) · Crime and Justice · doi:10.1086/732194 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- Wagner, B.
- Corresponding author
- Wagner, Bryan
- Venue
- Harvard University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Harvard University Press
- Published
- 2009-01-01
- OpenAlex
- W4245360035
- Cited by
- 262
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 59 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 61 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 5
- FWCI
- 1.20
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Harvard University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Race, History, and American Society
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Music › Music History and Culture
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Music › Theater, Performance, and Music History
- Keywords
- blues, African American culture, law and culture, W. C. Handy, John Lomax, phonograph records, penitentiary, Congo Square, legal history, African American music
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