This week, we share the final part of a conversation about policing sex. Micol Seigel talks to Anne Gray Fischer about her book, The Streets Belong to Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification. Today, their focus turns to Boston and Atlanta, discussing Boston’s vice district, known as the Combat Zone, and how the police used this zone to attract middle class white people for sexual tourism, while targeting, arresting, and banishing Black women in the area.
On the other hand, there was also a sustained pattern of arresting and banishing Black women in Atlanta, despite the presence of the Black political leadership there. White middle class businessmen created a campaign of sexual policing of Black people. Their group, Central Atlanta Progress Inc., shamed the Black leadership by threatening economic repercussions.
