Protect Ya Neck: What Happened To All Of The Cops That Beat And Killed Civil Rights Freedom Fighters?

Garrick McFadden
Momentum
Published in
7 min readSep 18, 2022

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“And I’ma get mad deep like a threat
Blow up your project, then take all your assets” — Protect Ya Neck, by the Wu Tang Clan

I wonder about the white police officers who were ordered to brutalize and maim people of all races, but predominately black folk, who marched for justice and freedom in Birmingham and other cities in America. I want to hear their stories. I long to discover the justification of the Chicago officers who, in 1919, would routinely escort uncivilized white mobs, safely, to their destination: a black family’s home in an all-white community. I wish to read the narratives of these white cops. I want to understand how they felt when members of this mob would light an incendiary device and throw it at this black family’s home. Not because this black family were wicked or evil and had outmaneuvered the criminal justice system. No, these officers allowed this criminals to commit arson without any recourse, because this black family was living in a white neighborhood. Did the officers feel they were administering justice when the firebomb broke the pane of glass, the only protection afforded to the home? Did these white policemen enthusiastically escort these deplorables to their neighbors’ homes, or was their some reluctance evident in their stride? Was the paycheck or the pension worth it? Or was the financial compensation secondary to the…

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Garrick McFadden
Momentum

I am a civil-rights attorney. I write about #whiteness, #racism, #hiphop, policing & politics. https://gamesqlaw.com/index.php/thoughts/