From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry

By Paula Yoo

A fatal bar fight ignites a civil rights movement, challenging justice and sparking nationwide protests.

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384 pages

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Bookroo's summary

In 1982 Detroit, a bar fight leaves Vincent Chin dead, igniting outrage when his killers receive a lenient sentence. This injustice propels the Asian American community into action, leading to a historic civil rights trial. As tensions rise, the fight for justice becomes a rallying cry against racism. Discover the pivotal events that transformed a tragedy into a movement, forever changing the landscape of civil rights in America. Will justice prevail, or will the echoes of this injustice continue to resonate? Uncover the story that turned whispers into a powerful call for change.

From the publisher

America in 1982: Japanese car companies are on the rise and believed to be putting U.S. autoworkers out of their jobs. Anti-Asian American sentiment simmers, especially in Detroit. A bar fight turns fatal, leaving a Chinese American man, Vincent Chin, beaten to death at the hands of two white men, autoworker Ronald Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz.Paula Yoo has crafted a searing examination of the killing and the trial and verdicts that followed. When Ebens and Nitz pled guilty to manslaughter and received only a $3,000 fine and three years’ probation, the lenient sentence sparked outrage. The protests that followed led to a federal civil rights trial–the first involving a crime against an Asian American–and galvanized what came to be known as the Asian American movement.Extensively researched from court transcripts, contemporary news accounts, and in-person interviews with key participants, From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry is a suspenseful, nuanced, and authoritative portrait of a pivotal moment in civil rights history, and a man who became a symbol against hatred and racism.