The Black Shields

About the Book

All but ignored, the Black police officer went unseen in a history that has been lost, stolen, and disguised by generations of segregation and discriminatory practices within the New York City Police Department, and city Government.

For more than a century, Black police officers walked a lonely beat, and very little was written about their struggled for equality and recognition since the first Black officer entered the Police Department in 1891.

The Book the Black Shields, written by an African American Police Detective, is a powerful pictorial history and narrative of the Black police experience that documents the successes and accomplishments shaped by an interconnected series of sociological, political and legal events that continue to take place today.

About the Author

Roger Abel is a retired second grade New York City Police Detective.

A native New Yorker, he has a long and distinguished career in law enforcement as President of the Black Police Officers Organization of the New York City Police Department called "Guardian Association, and President of the National Black Police Association. He has a bachelor''s degree in biology and psychology, a master''s degree in Public Administration, and many police department and community service awards.

His research and documentation of African American history in the NYPD has been a career of passion and dedication, but it is his involvement in developing opportunities and partnerships between the police and the Black community that he considers his greatest accomplishment.