This article takes place in the 1960s at the height of the civil rights movement. In this time the population is still enduring segregation. Segregated into different schools educating African Americans and white children differently ingraining the ideas of white supremacy at a young age. Even in the blurb of the article it starts by saying Negroes which gives us information on how African Americans were viewed at the time. The society was still telling African Americans that they were still not good enough to be with white people, that they are inferior. The police system took on this shared belief through brutally force by destroying and putting fear into African Americans. Even standing up to authority having a darker skin color your life was put at risk. This continued to fuel the already great divide between the two races. The police are supposed to protect the citizens but instead were targeting a whole race. African Americans did the only thing they could by minding their own business, keeping their heads low and trying to stay off the streets as much as possible to avoid the inevitable fate of being abused by society. The same system they are supposed to believe in to protect they were scared of.

Some questions a fieldworker might have to uncover the culture the article describes…
Who do you call when you feel endangered? If not the police why? Do you feel safe with the police? In what ways has police brutality changed from 1960 to today? Has it changed?

A fieldworker who wanted to gain the ondsider perspective would need to put himself in the enviornment where this has occured such as Harlem. Not only to go to Harlem but to speak with the residents of Harlem about how they were treated and what is their relationship with the police.