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The Holly: Five Bullets, One Gun, and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood
Top of the pile
88
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
90/100Critics
87/100Scholars
Author:
Julian Rubinstein
Publisher:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date:
May 11, 2021
On the last evening of summer in 2013, five shots rang out in a part of northeast Denver known as the Holly. Long a destination for African American families fleeing the Jim Crow South, the area had become an 'invisible city' within a historically white metropolis. While shootings there weren't uncommon, the identity of the shooter that night came as a shock. Terrance Roberts was a revered anti-gang activist. His attempts to bring peace to his community had won the accolades of both his neighbors and the state's most important power brokers. Why had he just fired a gun? In The Holly, the award-winning Denver-based journalist Julian Rubinstein reconstructs the events that left a local gang member paralyzed and Roberts facing the possibility of life in prison. Much more than a crime story, The Holly is a multigenerational saga of race and politics that runs from the civil rights movement to Black Lives Matter. With a cast that includes billionaires, elected officials, cops, developers, and street kids, the book explores the porous boundaries between a city's elites and its most disadvantaged citizens.
What The Reviewers Say
... rich research and extensive reporting.
... a powerful, up-close look at the criminal, political, and economic forces that can erode a community. But Rubinstein makes it clear this story isn’t just about Denver. It’s about the nationwide spread of the Crips and Bloods from their birthplace in southern California. It’s about the distribution of crack cocaine and the creation of new opportunities for dealers in impoverished neighborhoods. It’s about laws that disproportionately target Black Americans.
There are so many threads to this book and Rubinstein braids them together in a compelling multi-generational saga with a strong narrative and solid investigative reporting. From the civil rights movement of the 1960s to the Black Lives Matter movement, The Holly shows how the American government has viewed activists as threats and how local law enforcement has sabotaged and undermined their work.
An informed analysis of the complex intersections between police and the community, which will especially draw in readers involved in community organizing and anti-racist activism..
