In August 2014, a White police officer in a St. Louis suburb fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager who, according to some witnesses, had his arms raised in surrender. Seven months later, a 25-year-old Black man, Freddie Gray, suffered a broken neck after Baltimore police arrested him and placed him鈥攕hackled but not belted鈥攊n a van as the driver allegedly took a fast, sharp turn that tossed Gray about the vehicle. He died days later.
Both killings touched off uprisings in their overwhelmingly Black communities, with residents accusing Ferguson and Baltimore police of brutality and demanding accountability.听
These spasms of violence are where Derek Hyra, professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy and founding director of AU鈥檚 Metropolitan Policy Center, opens his third book,聽Slow and Sudden Violence: Why and When Uprisings Occur.听
Released in August, the book delves into the real estate histories of St. Louis and Baltimore, revealing an 鈥渙ngoing cycle of racial and spatial urban redevelopment repression鈥 that has led to pockets of deep Black poverty in cities and suburbs. Formed over decades by housing and development policies that forced out thousands of poor Black residents, these communities are primed for civil unrest when police commit an act of alleged brutality.
鈥淧olice brutality is not new鈥攂ut there are only particular moments when [it] triggers an uprising,鈥 Hyra says. Myriad researchers have tackled issues of law enforcement misconduct. But Hyra鈥攚ho was assisted with the fieldwork in Charm City by Lawrence Anderson, SPA/MA 鈥19, chief of staff to the Baltimore City Council鈥攖hought, 鈥淭here weren鈥檛 enough books that took a step back to look at these pockets of poverty where police violence occurs.鈥
Hyra, who in 2017 authored聽Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City,聽an examination of the dramatic gentrification of DC鈥檚 Shaw鈥揢 Street neighborhood, says he decided to include Ferguson in his analysis because he wanted to understand 鈥渢he suburbanization of poverty.鈥澛
滨苍听Slow and Sudden Violence,聽Hyra argues that local, state, and federal housing policies and decisions to knock down public housing and spend hundreds of millions of federal dollars to develop luxury- and mixed-income housing, sports venues, breweries, coffee shops, and other businesses have created 鈥渃hronic displacement trauma鈥 for residents of color who are forced to leave. An unjust police killing can trigger 鈥渟uppressed painful memories and anger鈥 linked with that trauma, he writes.听
Hyra underscores that Black political representation doesn鈥檛 ensure enlightened housing policies. He writes that while Ferguson for decades was a majority-Black town with a White power structure, Baltimore has had generations of Black leadership. The city鈥檚 Black mayors and council members have, like their White counterparts in Ferguson and elsewhere, eliminated housing for poor Black residents in favor of business development.
To break the cycle of gentrified, slow-moving violence, government officials must stop supporting policies that 鈥渃reate chronic displacement trauma and invest in places and people so they have a home base and a place,鈥 says Hyra, winner of the Urban Affairs Association鈥檚 2024 Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award. Mayors must think beyond their next election, he adds, and enact policies that invest in Black and underserved communities.鈥淲e can鈥檛 have gentrification and displacement policies. We need policies that invest in, uplift, and stabilize Black and brown communities.鈥澛