One Righteous Man: Samuel Battle and the Shattering of the Color Line in New York

Arthur Browne, in “One Righteous Man: Samuel Battle and the Shattering of the Color Line in New York” (Beacon Press), seamlessly weaves together three compelling and timely narratives: the untold story of the city’s forgotten first black police officer, Samuel J. Battle; the poet Langston Hughes’s struggle to complete Mr. Battle’s biography (the book draws heavily on Hughes’s own revealing unpublished manuscript); and an inspirational portrayal of how one man influenced history. (Mr. Browne and his book were the subject of a recent Metropolitan article.)