Ballots And Bullets

In the final episode of Ballots and Bullets we examine the political aftermath of the race violence in Cleveland fifty years ago, and how it connects to the horrific shooting of police officers in Dallas in the summer of 2016. This raises the question we asked at the start of this series: Why are there still such high tensions between African American citizens and police? We walk t

"This is just the beginning." Those were the words Fred Ahmed Evans told a black Cleveland police officer in the back of a squad car on the night of July 23, 1968. Evans referred to what he believed would be a multi-city rebellion, kicked off by the uprising he had just started. The problem was Evans and his group started the revolution a day early. In other cities, nationalists be

It is July 23, 1968. Fred Ahmed Evans and his Black Nationalist group have been purchasing rifle, shotguns and ammunition with money from Mayor Carl Stokes’s “Cleveland: NOW!” antipoverty program. This episode explores the events leading up to the first shots and the chaos that ensued. We’ve got exclusive interviews with Cleveland Police Officers who were part of the gun ba