Betrayed

 In this book, Hutchinson reveals that no American president has ever signed into law a federal antilynching bill despite a 50-year campaign by the NAACP for presidential and congressional action. He documents how Nixon, Reagan, and Bush rolled back civil rights and affirmative action, failed to fully enforce equal protection provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment against police abuse and racial violence, encouraged conservative legal obstructionism, and fueled the rise of a repressive domestic security state. These actions in turn have reinforced institutionalized racism and continued the historical pattern of devaluing black lives in law and public policy. Finally, Hutchinson warns that the century-old failure by the White House to enforce federal law to protect black lives still has dangerous consequences for American society.