Chenjerai takes us back to the summer of 1835, when Black New Yorkers are being kidnapped and sold into slavery in the south. But their friends and families can’t call the cops, because it turns out the kidnappers are the cops…can a group of Black resistance fighters stop it?

From Wondery, Crooked Media and PushBlack.

Empire City is made with a commitment to ensure the stories of those who were and are still impacted by the NYPD are always part of the stories we tell ourselves about the police, about America, and about democracy.

https://wondery.com/links/empire-city/

Voices & References:
Mariame Kaba https://mariamekaba.com/
Jon Wells https://www.jonathandanielwells.com/
Wilbur Miller https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/history/people/_emeriti/miller.php
The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War https://www.amazon.com/Kidnapping-Club-Street-Slavery-Resistance/dp/156858752X
The Congress of Racial Equality: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/congress-racial-equality-core

TRANSCRIPT

Chenjerai Kumanyika: The other day, I was hanging with my four year old daughter, Eniola, in the playground. She climbed nine feet into the air on a jungle gym, and then out of nowhere, she just jumped into my arms. She didn’t warn me because she knew I was going to catch her. And when I was growing up, I knew the same thing about my folks. But even when I went out on a limb, they had my back. And they always would. So 30 years ago, when I got a phone call telling me that my dad had died. Suddenly the world felt a lot less safe. I have a lot of pictures of my dad, including one I keep on my desk. He’s standing with his arm around me, looking right at the camera as if to say, anybody that wants to mess with my son has to go through me. But sometimes I wish I could unfreeze that image because I’ve never seen a video of him until now. [projector sound effect] The footage is from 1964. There’s no audio. It’s black and white, but surprisingly clear. He’s 31 years old. That’s younger than I ever saw him. But there he is. My dad. A Black man about six feet tall, wearing a dark fitted suit and a skinny tie. He looks like me. He’s moving. Interacting with others. He’s alive. I want him to walk out of the screen so I can hug him. But the more I watch, the more I feel confused and angry. Because this video is surveillance footage shot by a counterintelligence unit of the New York Police Department. [music plays] Back in the 1960s, my dad was a civil rights organizer working for the Congress of Racial Equality, and in March of 1964, he led a peaceful protest against police brutality. He and other activists handcuffed themselves inside police headquarters in lower Manhattan in minutes after the NYPD camera shut off. My dad was arrested. Nine days later, the police commissioner addressed the incident publicly in an annual NYPD breakfast in front of 6000 officers. He warned that he’d protect the city against violence and racial extremists. The room erupted in thunderous applause. Then he identified three individuals that he said had sinister motives and a lust for power. The first was Malcolm X. The second was a man named Jesse Gray, who had led rent strikes in Harlem. And the third was my dad Makaza Kumanyika. The NYPD says its mission is to—

[robotic voice over]: Enhance the quality of life in New York City by working in partnership with the community.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: But that’s exactly what my dad was doing. He dedicated his life to improving the lives of the most vulnerable people in New York. He protested racial discrimination in hiring, worked to desegregate schools, and fought police brutality. In other words, he was doing the right thing. And for that, they called him an enemy and arrested him. Who were they protecting when they did that? Definitely not him. The community he worked for, me, or even you. The second half of the NYPD stated mission—

[robotic voice over]: To enforce the law, to preserve peace, to protect people, to maintain order.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: But I keep trying to understand when maintaining order was the police keeping us safe? Because to me and a lot of other New Yorkers, that mission doesn’t sound anything like our experience with the NYPD. We usually see the police show up after the harm has happened, and then they treat everybody that looks like me like a criminal. And it’s not just that. Back in the day, when women and Black folks were marching in the streets for the right to vote, it was the police who took them to jail. And when Steelworkers went on strike in Chicago. It was the police that shot them. When powerful people want to deny rights, they use the police to do it, to maintain order. The way the police deal with the inconvenient people, the dangerous people who are fighting to make America a real democracy. That’s the story that’s been hidden in plain sight. [music plays] I wish I could tell you that my dad’s story was an exception, but once you know where to look, you start to see stories like this everywhere. At a time when we’re debating where policing is going. We’re going to tell you where the police came from. We’re going to go back and uncover the untold origin story of the largest and most infamous police department in the world, the NYPD. [music plays] From Wondery and Crooked Media. I’m Chenjerai Kumanyika and this is Empire City. Episode one. They Keep People Safe.

Mariame Kaba: Every single person in the U.S. thinks the police have always been here. It’s like, no, it hasn’t always been like this. And it also won’t always be like this. Things change.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: On a cold February morning. Educator and organizer Mariame Kaba is taking me on a tour of lower Manhattan. She’s helping me understand what things were like when the NYPD first started becoming what it is today.

Mariame Kaba: This location that we’re in is the corner of Broadway and Cortland.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: We walk past a lot of cops and Mariame Kaba says if we saw what passed for law enforcement back then, we wouldn’t even recognize them. Think of what you picture when we talk about police today. Badges, uniforms, guns, cars, walkie talkies. New York’s earliest cops didn’t have any of that. The first police in New York City was set up by its first colonizers, the Dutch, and what they had were green lanterns and handrails to sound the alarm. Because nothing says respect my authority like a hand rattle.

Mariame Kaba: The English who took over here in and then built Fort George here.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: By the early 1800s. The Rattler dudes are long gone, and in their place we’ve got constables and watchmen. They spend most of their time doing things like ringing bells and telling you what time it is.

Mariame Kaba: I always tell people when they come to New York City, and they see the city in the way that it’s built right now, that in the early 19th century, New York was a small town.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: The further we walk, the more I can imagine old New York long blocks of wooden buildings. There are horses and carriages, brick and cobblestone streets. Rats. Well, I mean, the rats are still here. [laughs] There’s no sewage system, so the air is filled with the stink that never really dissipates. And there’s lots of riots. It feels like every week, a fight on a street corner escalates into a neighborhood brawl, because every day there’s more and more people pouring into New York, including a growing number of Black folks.

Mariame Kaba: It was hard to, I think, escape that. And I think if you don’t understand, like New York as a small town, it’s hard to understand other things about New York.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Like how it’s not always clear who to call when you feel like you’re in danger. So let me tell you about this free Black woman named Miss Brown. She’s hanging in the house doing laundry when she hears a knock on the door. She opens it and a Black man introduces himself. His name is John Hill. He says they’re related, that he’s an uncle and he needs a place to crash. At first Miss Brown’s not sure if she recognizes him, but after they chat for a while, he does start to look familiar. So she and her husband say, you good brother. Come on in. One evening, John Hill tells Miss Brown, I’m going out for a walk, but I don’t really know this area. Can you come with me? I imagine him heading out, kicking it. Two Black folks, enjoying conversation that’s until out of the corner of our eye, Miss Brown catches a white man coming up behind her before she can get out of the way. The man grabs for her, he’s trying to kidnap her and Miss Brown is fighting back, but her so called Uncle John Hill. He leaves her in the arms of the kidnappers when her neighbors run up to see what’s going on. They try to wrench Miss Brown free, but the kidnapper has backup and Miss Brown is dragged away down the street. Everybody on the block hears her screams. The story of Miss Brown is like folklore, and the details vary in different accounts. But what we do know was that John Hill was offered money by a white man to lure Miss Brown into the kidnapping trap, so these men could send her into slavery in the South. What would you do if you saw someone taking your neighbor away against her will? Would you call the police? The people who saw Miss Brown’s kidnapping wouldn’t, because the white man snatching a free Black woman off the street is a police officer named Tobias Boudinot.

Mariame Kaba: Police officers like Tobias Boudinot boasted that they could arrest and send back any Black quote unquote, “to the South.”

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Before I started this journey, I never heard of Tobias Boudinot or police in the Free State of New York being involved in slavery.

Mariame Kaba: These motherfuckers are taking people off the street. Doesn’t matter if you’re, you know, a self emancipated Black person or if you’re free. They just sending people back to the South kidnapping them.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: But the more you look, the more you run into his name.

John Wells: I kept reading about kind of this, nefarious, mysterious character by the name of Tobias Boudinot.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Historian Jon Wells kept finding that name while he was researching early policing in New York.

Jon Wells: He is, a police constable who sort of represents that part of his community that wants to keep, Black people in check. You know, I mean, he’s a very violent and vile human being.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: And it’s not just that Boudinot is racist. He’s also broke. He’s in his late 20s, living in an apartment with his wife and kid in lower Manhattan. And being a constable doesn’t pay enough.

Jon Wells: I mean, the pay was extremely meager. His spouse would not have had a job. Right. So he has a lot of weight on his shoulders.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: He doesn’t have a shiny badge pinned to his shirt. And like Rodney Dangerfield, he doesn’t get any respect.

Jon Wells: They have long hours. There’s low morale. They’re poorly trained. And so there is every incentive in the world for them to look for ways to enhance their income.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: And Boudinot was always using his position to hustle up some scratch.

Wilbur Miller: The police Constables were like entrepreneurs.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Historian Wilbur Miller says the police in the 19th century didn’t walk an assigned beat like we think of today.

Wilbur Miller: They were reactive police.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: That means Boudinot isn’t preventing crime. He has to wait until something happens. For example.

Wilbur Miller: You were knocked down in the street. You know who did it? You go to the court and engage the services of a constable who, for a fee, would get out a warrant and make the arrest.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: So when a crime happens, it’s bad for you, but for Boudinot, it’s an opportunity.

Wilbur Miller: So somebody steals your gold watch, you go to the court, you talk to the constable. They really know the underworld, right? So it worked out that you get part of the value. The constable got part of the value, and the thief would be free from arrest, or might even get a little bit of the value himself. That’s called compounding a felony. You’re contributing to the crime itself, right?

Chenjerai Kumanyika: That seems crazy.

Wilbur Miller: It seems crazy, but that was the system.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Like, they have an incentive in a way, to keep crime going.

Wilbur Miller: Yes, exactly. They have an investment in crime.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: But even though Boudinot’s making a little cash here and there. His money problems are only getting worse.

Wilbur Miller: His landlord comes and takes his furniture out of his apartment because he hasn’t been able to pay his rent.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: And if sitting on the floor of an empty apartment isn’t humiliating enough. Newspapers are circulating lists of people who are bankrupt or being sued for not paying debts. And the fact that Boudinot is a constable doesn’t stop them from putting his business out there. But as Boudinot was panicking, what he doesn’t know is there something big is about to go down that’s going to change everything for him and his money situation. But it doesn’t start New York. It starts in Virginia.

Jon Wells: A dozen or so enslaved people decide to leave Norfolk, Virginia, to escape from bondage.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: They want to get to a state in the north where slavery’s been abolished. So this group of Black fugitives in the South manages to steal a boat. Late one night, 17 of them squeeze themselves on board and head north to New York. After a few quiet days at sea, the boat floats into New York City. Some of the folks on board must feel like they made it, that they’re finally safe. But it’s not that simple.

Jon Wells: Their ability to secretly make their way up the coast of the northeast sets an incredible, complicated set of patterns in motion.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Virginia’s governor hears about the escape, and he’s infuriated, so he taps into his allies up north. He writes to New York’s governor and basically says, can you help us get our slaves back? Before the 13th amendment ends most slavery in 1865. Northern states are obliged to return enslaved people to the South if they catch them. So New York has Virginia’s back. The governor agrees to recapture the fugitives. He just needs to find someone to track them down and bring them in. And a broken, desperate constable like Tobias Boudinot seems like the perfect man to get the job done. The governor of New York, hands Boudinot, a warrant.

Jon Wells: And it essentially says, you know, these people I have charged Constable Boudinot with finding.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: But this isn’t a regular arrest warrant. This is called a blanket writ, which gives Boudinot the legal right to arrest any Black person in the state that he suspects of being a fugitive. And it goes way beyond just the 17 fugitives who escaped Virginia.

Jon Wells: In every newspaper across the country, there are advertisements. You know these ads that say, you know, she ran away from my Virginia farm five years ago. You know anybody who can give me information on her whereabouts, I will reward them with $25 or $100.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: This warrant is a golden ticket. Finally, in answer to his money problems.

Wilbur Miller: Boudinot has pretty much, you know, got carte blanche to arrest people. Collect reward money. And he protects that piece of paper with his life. He guards it with his life, keeps it in his hat. He keeps it in his vest pocket.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: So basically, this white cop has a piece of paper that makes him look at any Black person has potential money in his pocket. And it’s this paper that gives Boudinot and constables like him carte blanche to kidnap a free woman like Miss Brown. But before Boudinot can sell someone into slavery and get his cut, he has to drag them into court. Stand in front of the bench and provide evidence that they’re actually a fugitive. Tragically, this isn’t hard because the judge who handles most of these cases is the city recorder, Richard Riker. That name might sound familiar. This was before Rikers Island existed, but recorder Riker is part of the same family that owned the land the notorious and deadly jail was built on.

Jon Wells: Riker would declare that person to be the self emancipated runaway. And within hours, that person was was sent to the South.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: He’s a racist with connections to the folks that run southern plantations. And he makes it clear that, quote, “We northern judges, damn the abolitionists.” And in this case, it turns out that a slave owner is claiming that Miss Brown is his property. And so an arrest by a constable stands to get paid and a claim by a slave owner are enough evidence. And Miss Brown is sent south into slavery. But Boudinot isn’t just selling Black folks into slavery because he’s a racist, even though he was. And it’s not because he had bad training. He didn’t have any kind of training. It’s because of the cash he stands to make. The real story that’s hidden when we write off Boudinot as a know nothing racist cop is that there’s a whole network of people from slave owners in the South to their business partners in Virginia, New York, making money off these sales. And no matter whether a state calls itself a free state or a slave state, what’s good for their wallets is the real law.

Wilbur Miller: There’s nobody in the legal system taking responsibility for their actions within the police force, within the legal community. There’s nobody telling Boudinot that they shouldn’t be doing this.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: And part of the reason no one’s telling Boudinot to stop is that a lot of white New Yorkers aren’t comfortable with their free Black neighbors. Some of them see free Blacks as competition for jobs, a threat to their economic safety that these police constables can handle for them. That entrenched racism, combined with the opportunity to make money, makes it easy for Boudinot to recruit other police in to his network of kidnapers, and the kidnaping business starts to boom. But inside houses, churches, and abolitionist meetings. New York’s Black community is quickly catching up to what’s going on. And one man is about to take his gloves off. I’m back on the streets of Manhattan with Mariame Kaba,  and she’s telling me that she started doing tours for her friends when they would come to New York, visiting all the standard attractions. But it didn’t take long for her to get tired of that, because she felt like it was giving them a whitewashed version of the city’s history.

Mariame Kaba: I was super interested in like, Black life, like what was going on with Black people here. [laughter] So over time, I started kind of like stopping doing the stupid tours that I were like, okay, we’ll go to the, you know, we’ll go to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. We’ll go to all these places. But I’m also gonna throw in some Black shit. That was basically the bottom line.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: And that’s how we ended up standing next to a glass skyscraper that was once the epicenter of New York City’s abolitionist movement. This corner used to be home to a bookstore owned by a man named David Ruggles. Everyone’s heard of Frederick Douglass and his courageous escape. But Ruggles was the man who helped him when he first arrived in New York, fresh out of slavery. Ruggles gave him a place to stay in food. His bookstore is a stop on the Underground Railroad, and Frederick Douglass is just one of the many Black folks that Ruggles supports.

Mariame Kaba: And he’s the person who basically, in my opinion, embodied the first, like, full time Black activist in New York.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: And one thing about David Ruggles that inspires Mariame Kaba is this philosophy of practical abolition.

Mariame Kaba: He believed that you did what you needed to do for your people. And that as human beings, it’s really, really important for us not to be subject to listening to people tell us that we’re going to eventually get free. That the notion of gradual freedom was bullshit.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Ruggles says that we need freedom now, this instant. And one reason why gradual, incremental freedom isn’t enough for the Black folks that are fighting Tobias Boudinot and his crew, is that for them, the horrors of slavery aren’t theoretical. The lived experience is as real and brutal as a whip tearing into your flesh. Remember Miss Brown. After a judge upholds her kidnaping she’s sold into slavery and desperately tries to get free again. I hope she did. But I also know that’s probably not what happened. We have one letter, she wrote, trying to find her mother, pleading for to send to free papers. And then we don’t know anything else. Now let’s be clear. Miss Brown was living a full life as a Black woman in New York. And because of a police officer, her freedom and even all record of her future is erased. Her capture is exactly the kind of thing Ruggles is fighting against, and he doesn’t wait for something to happen. He goes on patrol to find leads. [music plays]

Mariame Kaba: So he goes and he goes on to the docks, and he will sometimes disarrest people that have been stolen off the docks. He carried a gun easily because he was like, these people are trying to kill me.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: And talking with community members. One night, he gets a tip.

Jon Wells: Ruggles finds out that there’s a possibility that a family in Brooklyn, right in the heart of Brooklyn, are, in fact, holding three people as slaves.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Without waiting a second, Ruggles puts on his coat and heads to Brooklyn.

Jon Wells: He goes to the front door of this this family. The patriarch is not there, but his wife is there. And she says, you know, basically, what do you want? And he says, I hear that you’re holding people here as slaves, that contrary to the laws of the state of New York. And, then before she can really answer, he hears the people in the basement.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: They’re crying out, we’re here, we’re here!

Jon Wells: The lady of the house says these three are servants.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: And then she tries to prove that the Black folks being held captive in her house are paid workers.

Jon Wells: And she says to one of the enslaved people. Isn’t that true? And the woman says, I’ve never received a penny in payment. The only thing you do is you hit us about the head and and order us around, and you keep us as your property. [music plays]

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Looking at this white woman who’s holding enslaved people and lying straight to his face. Ruggles is furious. He tells the three enslaved people, y’all coming with me.

Jon Wells: I mean, he is literally saving people from slavery, you know, on a weekly basis in New York City.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: I mean, that’s bold. Even though that’s the law, that’s still bold.

Jon Wells: He was very bold. [music plays]

Chenjerai Kumanyika:  He co-founded a group of anti-slavery activists.

Mariame Kaba: Ruggles started the New York Committee of Vigilance, and the New York Committee of Vigilance became the institutionalized arm of the Underground Railroad.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Black women in the organization figure out how to get over a thousand people to donate a penny a week, and that translates into some real money. Now, the Committee of Vigilance can get to work.

Mariame Kaba: They created their own community policing system because they knew the cops were in on the act, and they were not expected to have good relationships with. Tobias Boudinot, they knew that those were their enemies, that they were trying to do something to them they did not want.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: They say if these folks are going to keep coming after us, we’ll start night watches in our own neighborhood, and we’ll get some of the best abolitionist lawyers to face Judge Riker in court. And as a matter of fact, why does Riker, one white man, get to decide whether Black folks get sent into slavery? If we have to go through their corrupt courts, let’s at least try to get a jury of our peers to hear these cases. And the whole time the committee is fighting with those strategies, Ruggles is also fighting with one of his most potent weapons, his pen.

Mariame Kaba: He deeply understood the value of literature. He’s your predecessor around the notion that media makes a difference.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Ruggles was constantly writing in Black newspapers. He published his own periodical called The Mirror of Liberty, and in the pages of the most widely circulated abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator.

[voice over]: He spoke truth to power. The most extraordinary samples of human depravity that have disgraced our city were police officers and judges. We have not protection in law because the legislators withhold justice. And at this point, we may no longer depend on the anti-slavery societies. We must look to our own safety and protection from kidnapers, remembering that self-defense is the first law of nature.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Ruggles writes a warning.

[voice over]: Colored people, beware, a certain constable in this city is very active in entering the dwellings of colored people, pretending to have search warrants, and ransacking their houses from cellar to garret in search of fugitives from slavery.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: He says, don’t let anybody in your house unless you know for sure they’re your friends. And he coined the term for Boudinot and his gang. The Kidnaping Club. [music plays] At this point, Boudinot has to face facts.

Jon Wells: Black people are not just going to acquiesce and say, oh, okay, you know, I know I’m innocent. You know, I’ll just come with you to prove my innocence at the police station. They are armed with knives. They are ready to kill. It’s a potent form of self-defense. And they are ready to defend themselves and their personal freedom whenever necessary.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: So Boudinot decides to go directly after the most outspoken voice of the resistance, David Ruggles. One night, the kidnaping club pays a visit to Ruggles home with the warrant for his arrest. But Ruggles is tipped off and he sneaks out the back door. I know he had to be relieved because he barely got out.

Mariame Kaba: There were bounties placed on him. He was hated by Wall Street. He was hated by the cops. The arsonists were constantly bombing his house like burning it down. He would rebuild. He would move to new places constantly to set himself up.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: But he’s not about to go into hiding. The next day, he marches down to City Hall to confront the men that have tried to arrest him. Boudinot was waiting and he pounces on Ruggles. He shoves him up against a marble pillar, trying to intimidate him. He says, I was after you last night. And then Bruno drags Ruggles into court. Ruggles is charged with resisting arrest, but the Committee of Vigilance organizes a quick defense. The charges don’t stick, and eventually he walks out of City Hall, a free man.

Mariame Kaba: David Ruggles is one of my favorite people who I’ve never gotten to meet, and I feel a kinship with him on multiple levels.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Mariame Kaba says she draws on the spirit of David Ruggles and all the work she does.

Mariame Kaba: When I do defense campaign work, I think about him. You know, my interest in in publishing. I think about Ruggles, who predates that when I’m out in the streets protesting, I think about Ruggles and what he did. So much to make it possible for me to be here in this moment and do what I get to do.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: And like Ruggles, she made the risky decision to become an outspoken critic of the police.

Mariame Kaba: I’m definitely not in any way in the league of danger that Ruggles experienced on a day to day basis. But you are going to you’re going to be at risk if you take unpopular positions. You have to. Take precautions. To try to be as safe as possible, but you also have to be completely aware of the fact that you’re actually never going to be safe.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: And the Committee of Vigilance knew they weren’t safe, despite all their organizing, fundraising and advocacy for two years after Miss. Brown was stolen off the street. The kidnaping club is still going strong. And just a few months later, when the kidnapers snatched another Black New Yorker, they say we tried to do this peacefully. Now it’s time to try something else. [music plays] With the kidnaping club in full effect. Tensions are still high between police and Black New Yorkers, but people are living their lives as best they can. On one spring day, a Black man named William Dixon wakes up early to get ready for work. Dixon is six feet tall. Known in his community for his powerful presence and strong voice. He sings in his local church on Sundays. And during the week he works a variety of odd jobs. This morning he’s headed to a painting gig, so he kisses his wife and heads out the door. Before he knows it, he’s approached by none other than Tobias Boudinot.

Jon Wells: Boudinot and other members of the kidnaping club arrested. Dixon. First telling him that he was accused of, public drunkenness or some kind of minor crime.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: But, of course, that’s not why they’re really there.

Jon Wells: He’s a big guy, and they’re afraid that if they accused him of being a runaway, that, you know, he’ll fight for his life.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Dixon’s wife learned that her husband has been arrested. She runs to David Ruggles in the Committee of Vigilance for support. The clock is ticking. Tobias Boudinot is going to take Dixon to stand before Richard Riker as soon as he can.

Jon Wells: And the Black community knows exactly what Riker’s predisposition is.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Black New Yorkers have been through this before, but this time they catch a break. They have a full week until Dixon is scheduled to appear in court. This gives the community time to strategize. They gather witnesses who can vouch for Dixon and the day of the trial. They roll up deep to Richard Riker’s courthouse. Once they get there, the usual playbook starts to unfold. Boudinot and his people, provide evidence that Dixon is property. That he belongs to someone in Baltimore. And that’s when things pop off. A huge crowd of Black folks bum rushes the front of the courthouse.

Jon Wells: Riker is completely bewildered about what’s going on, and they manage to, wrest control over William Dixon. You know, from the authorities, and take him out of the courthouse and into the streets of New York. And then this whole melee, erupts.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Someone tosses a knife and a dagger to William Dixon, and after a struggle, he gets away. A judge in a courtroom nearby rushes out to see what’s causing the commotion. Before he knows it, someone behind him grabs him by the neck.

Jon Wells: He’s, sort of manhandled by a Black woman. You know, who kicks him in the rear end.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Yeah.

Jon Wells: [laughter] Exactly. That’s the moment in which the audience cheers.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: The woman’s name is Keziah Manning, and records show that she and a man named Jesse hold the judge down while Black folks beat him to a pulp. Another man grabs a whitewashed brush and snaps it over the head of a constable. Someone else jumps in and starts hitting that same officer. At that point, Tobias Boudinot realizes that the police have lost control. So he pulls out a gun and aims it at the guy pummeling his fellow officer. Everyone braces as Boudinot squeezes the trigger. But nothing happens. The gun miraculously fails to go off. [music plays] In the confusion. William Dixon gets away from the courthouse. He runs a few blocks. Sees a basement on Duane Street and dives into it. The kidnaping club sees him run away and follows him. They scour the street until they find him. Then they take him to prison. But there’s no way that the Committee of Vigilance is giving up. Over the next few weeks, they keep fighting in court and raise bail money for Dixon’s release. Four months after the Black community struggled to free Dixon at the courthouse, the Committee of Vigilance gets a letter from David Ruggles.

[voice over]: It is with regret that I make this letter a substitute for my personal appearance.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Time, and all of his effort is taking its toll on him.

[voice over]: Though declining health compelled me to retire from the city and take refuge in the country. My heart is with you in the cause of freedom.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Ruggles develops a chronic illness and leaves New York for Massachusetts to recover, but he knows folks are anxious about William Dixon. Dixon has disappeared since being released on bail and people want to know what happened. So Ruggles shares one final detail about Dixon to lift their morale and strengthen their resolve.

[voice over]: He is not kidnaped by that gang of desperadoes which infest our city. As has been reported. He is taking the advice of his friends and retired to the country.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: William Dixon is free, but Newark’s Black community has to face a harsh reality. As long as there’s money to be made from slavery. They’re going to be targeted by the police.

Mariame Kaba: When people said that slavery was going to end. People thought they were bonkers. People did. People thought this was natural. It’s always been like this. What do you mean? Black people can’t integrate? They’re not smart. They don’t know. They can’t do. And people are like. No, no. We got to end now. Got to end now. Not ten years now. We want it now. And Ruggles and them were tarnished for that. They died for that. For that here. But you know what? The three of us are standing here today. We’re here because of all of that.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: [background chatter] On a warm Friday morning last spring? My daughter Eniola and I met my producer, Sam, in Central Park. [chatter] Central Park is one of my daughter’s favorite places to visit in New York City. When we’re away from cars surrounded by green grass. She can yell as loud as she wants and run as fast as she can. I can tell it makes her feel free. But part of why I like to come to Central Park is that this land that Eniola is running on. Was once home to Seneca Village, an early 19th century free Black settlement at a time when it wasn’t remotely possible to rely on the police for protection. Black folks built a community on this land with schools, churches, and gardens that existed for 32 years. [background chatter] When my daughter and I come here to play. We feel connected to that. 200 years of Black history in New York. The radical possibility of freedom and community and possibility my father fought to protect. [background chatter]  As I sit playing in the sandbox with Eniola, I see a police officer approaching the edge of the playground, and my body instinctively stiffens. I look down. She’s still playing completely carefree. Part of me wants to freeze her in this moment. But then something comes over me. The police are already a part of her world. I’ve seen them in the cartoons she watches and her toys, and there even cops at her school. And I start wondering, what is she actually picking up from all that? Eniola that me ask you a question. What do you think? What do you think the police do? She puts down a sand shovel and her eyes dart back and forth, searching for the right answer.

Eniola Kumanyika: They they they keep people safe.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: I mean, that is what the police say their job is. But when I hear her say it, I start to panic.

Eniola Kumanyika: They they they keep people safe.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: As a father. Part of me wishes I could just leave the truth hidden and protect her innocence. I wish I could tell her that Tobias Boudinot in the kidnaping club, were just bad apples. And then after they faded out, New York’s police grew into something that we all could rely on to protect us. But that’s not what happened. I don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet, but I did find another piece that gets me one step closer to understanding the NYPD as we know it today. And it starts with a murder. We’ll get into that next time. This season on Empire City.

[unknown speaker]: The first person to use the term organized crime didn’t mean it in the sense of Don Corleone in the Mafia. He meant it in terms of the police department.

[unknown speaker]: I mean, police is the ground level occupying force of empire, right? An empire is only as powerful as their forces holding in the weapons.

[unknown speaker]: They wanted me to write about the New York City Police Department, but without using the words violence or corruption, which is effectively impossible.

[unknown speaker]: There hasn’t been violence and corruption. I would like everyone in New York to know they shouldn’t be fearing the police. They should be revering the police for the job they do.

[unknown speaker]: Way, way, way. Edward. Did you just get upset because a Black man didn’t break the law? Wake up bro. Remember who you are.

[unknown speaker]: What would you tell that young aside ten years ago?

[unknown speaker]: I would tell that poor, terrified 19 year old baby that one day you will defeat the NYPD. The nightmare is going to end, bro. Trust me. Just hang in there.

Chenjerai Kumanyika: Empire City is made with a commitment to ensure that the stories of those who were, and still are, impacted by the NYPD are always part of the stories we tell ourselves about the police, about America, and about democracy. To learn more, go to Crooked.com/empirecity or check out our show notes. Empire City is a production of Wondery and Crooked Media. I’m your host and executive producer Chenjerai Kumanyika. For Crooked Media. Our senior producer is Peter Bresnan. Our managing producer is Leo Duran. Our senior story editor is Diane Hodson. Our producer is Sam Riddell. Boen Wang and Sydney Rapp are our associate producers. Sound design, mixing and original score by Axel Kacoutié. Our historical consultant and fact, checker is History Studios. Our voice actor is Demetrius Noble for Wondery. Our senior producer is Mandi Gorenstein. Our senior story editor is Phyllis Fletcher. Our coordinating producer is Myrriah Gossett. The executive producer of PushBlack is Lilly Workneh. Executive producers at Crooked Media are Sarah Geismer, Katie Long, Tommy Vietor and Diane Hodson. Executive producers at Wondery are N’Jeri Eaton, George Lavender, Marshall Lewy, and Jen Sargent.