History of Police Violence Against African Americans

Assignment: Write a 750 word essay reporting on the history of Police Violence in America

Sources: Use at least 8 sources, half of which must come from the UAB library.

Annotated Bibliography: In addition to formatting your bibliography (which will include all sources you considered and not just the ones you directly quoted), I will ask you to write a short paragraph for each source assessing it’s bias and reliability and accuracy. Just put these paragraphs under each source in the Bibliography that you will include at the end of your paper.

What is a report?

It is, on the one hand, simply a summary of the sources. But it can be tricky. You have to pick sources that are comprehensive enough to really cover a large portion of the topic. You have to find sources that are not too biased in order to get a fair history. Then you have to summarize the most important parts of the sources. I’d like to see direct quotes from at least 4 sources.

How to organize it?

I think it should be organized chronologically, rather than source-by -source. Choose some major events that have happened in the history of police violence and organize your paper around them.

What should it cover?

I’d like to know about any major events that have occurred that will include changes in policy at all levels: local city level policies, state level policies, and federal policies. I’d like to know about important events that precipitated these events. But then there’s also a broader question here that you should address. I’d like to know how policing came to be in America at all. Don’t JUST focus on the question of police violence, but also ask yourself how the police force was created and what it was designed to do for our society.