Bridging the river of hatred
Subtitle: the pioneering efforts of Detroit Police Commissioner George Edwards
By: Mary M. Stolberg.
Series: Great Lakes books
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Detroit
Language: eng
Number of pages: 347
Subjects: Edwards, George C. 1914-; Police chiefs -- Michigan -- Detroit -- Biography.; Police administration -- Michigan -- Detroit -- History -- 20th century.
Description: Bridging the River of Hatred portrays the career of George Clifton Edwards, Jr., Detroit's visionary police commissioner whose efforts to bring racial equality, minority recruiting, and community policing to Detroit's police department in the early 1960s were met with much controversy within the city's administration.

At a crucial time when the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum and hostility between urban police forces and African Americans was close to eruption, Edwards chose solving racial and urban problems as his mission. Deeply committed to social justice, Edwards was a historical figure with vast political and legal experience, having served as head of the Detroit Housing Commission, a member of Detroit's common council, a juvenile court judge, a Michigan Supreme Court justice, and judge on the Sixth U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals. Incorporating material from a manuscript that Edwards wrote before his death, supplemented by historical research, Mary M. Stolberg provides a rare case study of problems in policing, the impoverishment of American cities, and the evolution of race relations during the turbulent 1960s.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 323-327) and index.