In the 1960s, New York City Police Commissioner Michael J. Murphy enacted a series of policies that put Harlem under what was effectively a police state.
It was the dawn of the modern civil rights movement, and racial tensions were high. Murphy promised to be tough on "racial extremists" and even refused several times to listen to the pleas of civil rights groups who wanted an investigation into police brutality.
The Harlem riot of 1964. Photo via Dick DeMarsico/New York World Telegraph & Sun/Wikimedia Commons.
