Book Review: ‘The Man Nobody Killed,' by Elon Green
In the early hours of Sept. 15, 1983, a 25-year-old Black man named Michael Stewart was arrested for allegedly tagging a subway wall with a marker. According to the arresting officer, Stewart attempted to escape up the stairs, where the officer caught him, pinning him to the ground with a nightstick. Outside the precinct headquarters on Union Square, he allegedly tried to run off again, only to be piled on by multiple officers. College students in a building overlooking the square saw the officers kicking and beating the handcuffed Stewart (who weighed only 143 pounds) as he lay facedown on the sidewalk, screaming for help. One witness saw an officer slide a club under Stewart's neck and yank it upward. After Stewart stopped moving he was thrown, hogtied, into a paddy wagon, and driven to Bellevue Hospital. There, after 13 days in a coma, he died. No one was ever held accountable.
Elon Green's grimly vivid telling of this story and its aftermath in 'The Man Nobody Killed' is part elegy for Stewart himself, part portrait of the city that failed him. It avoids drawing explicit parallels with our own time, but then it hardly needs to.
An aspiring artist, Stewart was just beginning to make his presence felt in New York's downtown scene. He'd bussed at the Pyramid Club (until he was fired for being insufficiently aggressive), modeled for Dianne Brill (Warhol's 'Queen of the Night'), dated Jean-Michel Basquiat's sometime girlfriend Suzanne Mallouk, partied at Danceteria and appeared in Madonna's debut music video at Paradise Garage.
His own art, executed at a dilapidated studio above the Anderson Theater on the Bowery (no running water — fishbowls for toilets), was still at a formative stage: 'small, resonantly colored abstract paintings,' the New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote, that conveyed 'a serious aspiration.' He was seriously ambitious too: 'He wanted to do giant murals across the country,' a tagger buddy tells Green. Image
But it was his unlucky fate to enter posterity as the subject of other people's art and protest rather than the creator of his own. A remarkable number of the luminaries of that watchful, jittery era were shocked into action by Stewart's killing. The artist David Wojnarowicz designed a flier for a rally at Union Square while Stewart was still on life support. Basquiat, profoundly shaken by the incident ('It could have been me,' he observed), painted a spontaneous memorial on his friend Keith Haring's studio wall. Haring, who had been arrested four times for graffiti but — as he acknowledged — was spared mistreatment because he was white, later fashioned an anguished tribute of his own. Andy Warhol, Toni Morrison and Spike Lee all drew on the event in various ways, while political reaction ranged from demonstrations to two separate bombings, one of which blew up the bathroom in the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association building, injuring two maintenance workers.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Data vs. dog whistles: Debunking Trump's manufactured DC emergency
Washington, D.C. is not a war zone, but you wouldn't know it from the president's orders. On Monday, President Trump staged a dramatic show of federal force: 800 National Guard troops patrolling D.C. streets, the Metropolitan Police Department seized under the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973 and 130 FBI agents ordered to 'take our capital back.' All because of a so-called 'crime emergency.' The real crisis is that Trump is ignoring research-backed crime deterrent strategies and actively gutting programs that actually work to promote public safety. Trump's manufactured emergency is not a public safety strategy — it is political theater. It is a distraction from more pressing national headlines, from the Epstein investigation to ongoing tariff disputes. Although the Home Rule Act grants the president emergency authority, using it to occupy the city in defiance of data-backed realities tramples D.C.'s autonomy, needlessly scares tourists off and sets a perilous precedent for federal overreach. The truth? No emergency exists. Violent crime in D.C. has dropped 26 percent compared to last year, including declines in homicides, carjackings and other serious offenses. Crime analyst Jeff Asher notes that: Murders have steadily declined since late 2023, tracking pre-pandemic trends. Carjackings, after 2023, have fallen back to early-pandemic levels and continue to drop Violent crime overall remains far below its peak in the early 1990s and below levels from a decade ago. This trend isn't unique to D.C. Violent crime nationally is near 50-year lows. So why the military spectacle? Because fear is politically useful. Trump's rhetoric casts D.C. as a city overrun with ' bloodthirsty criminals,' ' drugged-out maniacs ' and homeless people who must be removed. This rhetoric seemingly justifies carceral responses, even though research shows they neither solve crime nor address underlying causes, and often make conditions worse. Trump's emphasis on locking up young people may grab headlines, but it does not produce long-term safety. By invoking exaggerated threats and casting youth, especially Black and Hispanic youth as inherently violent, Trump is resurrecting the long-discredited 'superpredator' myth. Coined by criminologist John Dilulio in the 1990s, this false narrative fueled punitive juvenile sentencing laws and disproportionately criminalized youth in communities of color. While we should be rejecting this toxic legacy, Trump is instead ignoring what works, rooted in evidence, to keep communities safe. Decades of research show that mass incarceration of youth yields no evidence of sustainable crime reduction. What works instead? Mentorship, employment, safe spaces, educational pathways — investments that anchor youth rather than isolate and incarcerate them. Arrest sweeps also won't erase the need for housing, and neither FBI agents nor National Guard troops are equipped to tackle the structural drivers of crime. Crime is fundamentally a problem of social conditions, including housing, jobs, education, healthcare and mental health needs, all well documented. Evidence is clear: permanent supportive housing, robust mental health services, and targeted economic support reduce chronic homelessness. Starve a community, and you invite instability. This 'emergency' was built strategically. Earlier this year, Republicans in Congress gutted D.C.'s budget, freezing funding for everything from violence interruption programs to youth employment initiatives. It's a calculated, exploitative playbook: Cut resources that keep people safe, let the fractures deepen, then point to the damage as proof the city is 'out of control.' Now, Trump leverages this fabricated crisis to justify militarizing the nation's capital, while distracting from dominating headlines that further undermine his credibility. Imagine redirecting even a fraction of the D.C. military deployment budget (estimated to be in the millions) into community investments. Research is unequivocal — these investments lower crime more sustainably than militarized, force-first approaches. These are real solutions grounded in prevention, not political propaganda. The spectacle of soldiers may project power, but effective public safety comes from prevention, not performance. The District doesn't need occupation; it needs investment. We must reject fearmongering and demand an evidence-based response to crime that builds a safer D.C. for all.
Chicago Tribune
3 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
‘Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan' review: How the TV variety show boosted Black talent when segregation was the norm
The documentary 'Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan' on Netflix examines the pivotal role 'The Ed Sullivan Show' played in spotlighting Black music and culture to TV audiences at a time when segregation was still the norm. In a clip discussing his Sunday night variety show, which ran on CBS from 1948 to 1971, Sullivan keeps his intentions clear and to the point: 'It seemed to me, if you're using public air(waves), the least you can do — or TV can do — in return for this high privilege was to try to do something to bring people a little closer together.' Sullivan died in 1974 and sometimes in the film his voice is drawn from television interviews he gave over the years. But sometimes it's courtesy of artificial intelligence — a synthetic recreation — that gives literal voice to the columns and articles he wrote over the years. I have an ethical problem with this choice. Plenty of documentary projects before the advent of AI handled this by simply hiring a talented actor to voice the written words of their subjects. It's the more honest choice and it doesn't detract from the end result. I wish filmmakers embraced that instead. But otherwise 'Sunday Best,' from director Sacha Jenkins (who died this past May), is a fine effort that explores Sullivan's commitment to pushing back against network forces, sponsors and other interested parties who were opposed to the presence — the celebration, really — of Black people on the show. Sullivan's influence predates all but the boomer generation, and though I've seen clips, I don't think I've ever watched an episode all the way through. My ideas around him were vague and uninformed, mostly of the stiff host tolerating the younger acts. But that impression is inaccurate and undersells his own taste; instead of the reluctant old fogie, he was keeping his finger on the pulse of pop culture and handpicked every entertainer who appeared on his show. Watching his talents more closely here, I have a real appreciation for what he was doing — and how he did it — during a period of profound social change in the U.S. The documentary also offers an opportunity to think through the impact the show had at the time, compared to our current era, where the closest equivalent — the late-night talk show — has lost so much of its cultural relevancy when it comes to showcasing performers to a broad audience. Sullivan's path to TV fame was unintentional. He began as a print journalist in sports. Years later, he would note: 'Sports writers get to be very critical and observant. They can tell you what makes a certain ballplayer click.' Maybe he used some of those same skills when it came to identifying which acts he wanted on his show. Segregation never sat well with him. Using the verbiage of the era, he recalls that when he played baseball in high school, 'there were Negros in the league and some fellows said they would actually not play against a Negro. I always resented (those classmates) very deeply because the Irish had gone through that when we first came.' His parents knew bigotry was wrong. 'They weren't broad-minded, they were just sensible,' is how he puts it. Later, as a sports writer, he covered a college football game played in New York, where the northern school benched its one Black player to appease their opponents from Georgia. Sullivan was disgusted, so he wrote about it. What a shameful state of affairs this is, of a player 'risking his neck for a school that will turn around and bench him because the University of Georgia asks that the color line be drawn.' Sullivan did not mince words: 'If a New York City university allows the Mason-Dixon line to be erected in the center of its playing field, then that New York City university should disband its football season for all time.' He was eventually reassigned from sports to Broadway — the film doesn't explore why, or if that column was the reason — and though Sullivan was unfamiliar with the new beat, it eventually led to gala hosting opportunities, which paved the way for his career in television. He got terrible reviews at first; he wasn't a natural in front of the camera. Not that it mattered. 'I never thought I was the attraction. I just keep looking for the best thing to put on the show.' And that included Black talent. The prevailing idea at the time that 'Negro performers should be barred from TV shows on which white performers appear is both stupid and vicious,' he said. Fifty years after it went off the air, 'The Ed Sullivan Show' is maybe most famous for appearances by Elvis Presley and The Beatles. But the list of Black musical acts Sullivan featured is long and notable, with 'Sunday Best' including clips of Bo Diddley, James Brown, Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson, Cab Calloway, Pearl Bailey, Nina Simone, Mahalia Jackson, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes. Jackie Wilson singing 'Lonely Teardrops' is a standout and a fascinating example of a singer taking the stage alone, without any visible musicians behind him. No dancers, set, or props either. You don't really see that kind of thing today, and it's remarkable how he establishes a presence with nothing more than his voice and charisma. 'Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan' — 3 stars (out of 4) Where to watch: Netflix
Chicago Tribune
3 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
‘Highest 2 Lowest' review: Spike Lee and Denzel Washington re-team for a heist movie that pays off
The 1959 Ed McBain crime novel 'King's Ransom' has crossed the Pacific Ocean twice now, and its latest screen incarnation, 'Highest 2 Lowest,' makes for a disarming hand-off from the stern gravity of Akira Kurosawa to the exuberant restlessness of Spike Lee. It's also serious where it counts — in its reminder that cheapening a product, the thing you make, helps a bottom line only so long. In the McBain novel as well as the 1963 Kurosawa drama 'High and Low,' the protagonist's business was shoes. In 'Highest 2 Lowest,' Lee and debut feature screenwriter Alan Fox trade footwear for music, with Denzel Washington as a celebrated record label executive facing a kidnapping crisis, a scramble to hang onto everything he's worked for and a battle for his own soul. Some of that is handled on the story's surface. The best of it carves through that surface. 'Highest 2 Lowest' works with all the freedom and genre crisscrossing director Lee embraces so readily, as his latest, open-hearted valentine to New York City frames the ransom narrative. That narrative unfolds in the neighborhood of Kurosawa's version for about an hour. Music mogul David King (Washington) may be struggling to keep his empire together, as we learn, but the wry, ridiculously white opening-credits underscoring of 'Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'' accompanying elegant footage of King's penthouse view of the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan beyond it, sets up a story of Black enterprise and the high cost of selling out. King, his regal wife Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera) and their son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) share a luxe Brooklyn waterfront perch with King's friend and driver Paul (Jeffrey Wright), whose own son Kyle (Elijah Wright, Jeffrey's real-life son) is Trey's best friend. At basketball practice, an unknown kidnapper grabs King's son for a $17.5 million ransom, only to learn he abducted Kyle, not Trey. 'Highest 2 Lowest' follows the same route, more or less, as Kurosawa's 'High and Low' up until King drops the ransom money from a moving subway. Then director Lee remaps the story, so that King's music milieu is exploited in intriguing and unexpected ways. A lot of detail work pays off; at one point, preceding a sharply realized encounter between Trey and his father in Trey's bedroom, we see crestfallen Trey, safe at home but guilt-wracked for his abducted friend, doom-scrolling through conspiracy theories suggesting this 'nepo baby' staged the kidnapping for personal gain. Lee's film offers many rewards, many of them performance-based. These rewards may cost you some pocket change in terms of plausibility and such. The wealthy, somewhat callous protagonist (Washington here, Toshiro Mifune back in '63) initially balks at paying the ransom money and wiping out his business to save his friend's son's life. Does changing your mind and doing the right thing when an innocent life hangs in the balance constitute a true and compelling crisis of conscience in 'Highest 2 Lowest'? Or just a strategic delay? The latter for me. Other snags are purely visual, notably the capper to the scene where King must toss the bag of ransom millions at a specific time and place, from a speeding elevated train. The capper relies on such an insane bit of coincidental timing, you may feel as if you're experiencing a series of micro-strokes watching it play out. But then, you know, you move on, because the payoffs that actually pay off more than compensate. Watching Washington and Wright share any of their scenes in 'Highest 2 Lowest' is pure pleasure. They're two of the greatest screen actors we have, that's all. Wright can take a simple line like 'Am I being detained?' and turn it into a summit of desperate meaning; it comes when Wright's character, pressing for police cooperation in the botched kidnapping, nearly loses his self-control because the cops in the King's penthouse are losing theirs. Washington, meantime, gives King not just stature, but ripples of conflict and doubt. The storyline needs them, and needs an actor who keeps us guessing. Scripted or improvised, at one point King expresses a private moment of rage wordlessly, pretending to finger-shoot a couple of weaselly colleagues after they've left his office, and then turning the pretend gun on himself. It's not played for laughs. Washington plays it for something a lot more interesting. Throughout, Lee treats this project with a generous viewfinder, as he and masterly cinematographer Matthew Libatique scope out everything from Eddie Palmieri, Rosie Perez and Anthony Ramos at the Puerto Rican Day parade to Nicholas Turturro screaming 'BOSTON SUCKS!' directly to the camera, warming the hearts of Yankees fans everywhere, none more devoted than the director of 'Highest 2 Lowest.' A model of conventional thriller suspense, the movie isn't. A stimulating cry for 'Black culture and artistic integrity,' in King's words, and for the true value of a well-made commodity, whether it's shoes or songs — that, the movie surely is. 'Highest 2 Lowest' — 3 stars (out of 4) MPA rating: R (for language throughout and brief drug use) Running time: 2:13 How to watch: Premieres in theaters Aug. 15; streaming on Apple TV + Sept. 5.
