America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s

Hinton uses ”the crucible period” to refer to the period of violent rebellions that took place in cities across America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, starting after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. She argues that this period, though not as well-remembered as the civil rights movement of the early 1960s, “has defined freedom struggles, state repression, and violence in Black urban America down into our own time” (12).

Hinton uses the term “the cycle” several times throughout America on Fire to refer to a repeated pattern of events that occurred in cities all across America, and which continues to occur to this day. A single small encounter between police and Black people would escalate into mass violence and rebellion. The police would overreact, which prompted the Black residents to fight back, which was used to justify an even more draconian response from police, which inspired even more widespread rebellion. Hinton provides several examples throughout the book of this cycle in action, and makes it clear that, while the media tended to blame Black Americans for the violence, it was the inherently threatening, invasive presence of police in Black neighborhoods that was the true source of conflict.

The title of Chapter 5, “The Poisoned Tree,” is a metaphor used to describe the systemic racism within the law enforcement system. In cases where officers would brutalize or murder Black Americans, both police departments and politicians dismissed these incidents as merely being a case of one “bad apple” cop, while the majority of officers were good. This argument was used to avoid any examination of the culture which gave rise to these “bad apples.” Hinton says that Black Americans have long understood that “bad apples” don’t exist in isolation, but grow from a “poisoned tree”—i.e., an unjust system filled with racist attitudes.