22 min listen
Combat Zone: Murder, Race, and Boston’s Struggle for Justice, with Jan Brogan
Combat Zone: Murder, Race, and Boston’s Struggle for Justice, with Jan Brogan
ratings:
Length:
59 minutes
Released:
Nov 21, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
In the book Combat Zone, Murder, Race, and Boston’s Struggle for Justice, journalist Jan Brogan turns her impressive research and reporting skills on the case of Andy Puopolo, a 21 year old Harvard football player who was killed in a fight in the Combat Zone in 1976. The case would pit the most privileged group at the most privileged school in the world against three poor Black men on the margins of society, while in the background Boston tore itself apart on racial lines.
The book plumbs the depths of white, working class Boston’s racial resentments during the busing era, a criminal justice system that stacked the deck against Black defendants, and a police department that was compromised at its core by organized crime. It highlights the street violence that helped cement Boston’s reputation as the most racist city in the country, as well as the two trials that came to diametrically opposite verdicts in the same city, just a couple of years apart. It also puts the reader in the mind of the younger brother of the victim, left behind to deal with his feelings of grief and guilt, while wrestling with the possibility of revenge.
Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/236/
Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/
The book plumbs the depths of white, working class Boston’s racial resentments during the busing era, a criminal justice system that stacked the deck against Black defendants, and a police department that was compromised at its core by organized crime. It highlights the street violence that helped cement Boston’s reputation as the most racist city in the country, as well as the two trials that came to diametrically opposite verdicts in the same city, just a couple of years apart. It also puts the reader in the mind of the younger brother of the victim, left behind to deal with his feelings of grief and guilt, while wrestling with the possibility of revenge.
Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/236/
Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/
Released:
Nov 21, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Episode 7: Jane Toppan, Nightmare Nurse (Dec 11, 2016): In 1901, a woman named Jane Toppan was arrested on Cape Cod for murder. By the time she went on trial, she had confessed to killing 31 people in Boston, Cambridge, on the Cape, and around the region, and she’s suspected of killing 100 or more. From a ... by HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History