The Condemnation of Blackness

Chapter 5 continues to focus on Philadelphia and investigates the color line that defined the city’s crime prevention methods during the Progressive Era. Muhammad points out that studying crime prevention highlights one of the key hypocrisies of white reformers of the time. While racial liberals and other progressives argued that crime was a result of political and economic issues, Muhammad draws attention to the fact that the focus of their work was not systemic. Instead, white progressive emphasized personal morality and such messaging was often racialized.

One of the key crime-fighting methods Philadelphia employed during the Progressive Era was vice raids, where police would infiltrate houses and “vice dens” (where acts such as prostitution and gambling occurred) and make arrests to clean the city of “immorality.” This method was championed in the early 1910s by Mayor Blankenburg and his Vice Commission. Black community leaders were not averse to the idea on paper; indeed, they supported the basis of crime prevention. However, they argued that Black communities were neglected by the city’s anti-vice mission. Even worse, in the few times that Black neighborhoods were visited by the Vice Commission, the policemen involved would make discriminatory, often violent arrests that infringed on Black civil rights.