WHAT KEEPS US SAFE? EMPIRE CITY LIVE
ICE and the war on immigrants. Federal police takeovers of major cities. Racial profiling. Surveillance. How did we get here? To begin to address these issues, you need to understand where it all started.
LEARN HOW AMERICA BUILT ITS POLICING SYSTEMS
Join Crooked Ideas and Empire City host Chenjerai Kumanyika to discuss the themes of the award-winning podcast, Empire City: The Untold Story of the NYPD – power, policing & public safety. Through a virtual podcast club, IRL events, and a curriculum for educators, we’ll examine and debate the role of law enforcement in public safety – and how it connects to what we’re seeing today.
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Hear the untold origin story of the NYPD
Listen to the Podcast -
Join us in NYC to tour the NYPD’s history
Join a Walking Tour -
Help your students trace the roots of policing
Download the Curriculum
About the Program & Why Now
Empire City Live is a series of free events and workshops hosted by Peabody-award winning host, author and scholar Chenjerai Kumanyika. The program will help you understand how policing, surveillance, federal power, and community resistance have shaped American life for nearly 200 years. The themes explored are the same ones shaping national politics in real-time. It’s never been a more important time to examine how we got here.
Based on the hit podcast Empire City, the program is designed to help you:
- Understand how we got here
- Map the connections between past and present
- Learn from journalists, organizers, academics, and reform advocates
- Build a shared vocabulary around public safety
- Explore and understand people-centered models of safety
About Empire City
Peabody Award-winning host Chenjerai Kumanyika takes listeners on a journey to uncover the hidden history of the largest police force in the world – from its roots in slavery, to rival police gangs battling across the city, to everyday people who resisted every step of the way. As our society debates where policing is going, Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD explores where the police came from. From Wondery, Crooked Media and PushBlack.
Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD
Listen Now
Join a walking tour
Join us in New York City for a walking tour that brings Empire City to life. This two-hour walk, beginning in Lower Manhattan, will stop at different sites referenced in the series to give attendees a fuller and more authentic understanding of the NYPD’s history. Built in partnership with New York Narratives – a walking tour company and storytelling project uncovering the underrepresented and erased local community stories of NYC.
WHERE PUBLIC SAFETY STANDS TODAY
Under the Trump administration, “public safety” is being weaponized to harass and even terrorize immigrant communities, organizers, activists, and everyday citizens of the blue cities MAGA has targeted. The overwhelming majority of immigrants who have been subjected to lethal violence and deportations had no criminal record whatsoever. These policies are actively making our communities significantly less safe. They’re also straining local law enforcement and creating a dangerous climate of surveillance, fear, and violence–especially in neighborhoods that already face over-policing.
In this critical moment, understanding the true history of policing is more important than ever. Crooked Media’s Empire City podcast, hosted by Peabody Award-winning journalist Chenjerai Kumanyika, explores the historical roots and cultural impact of policing in America—beginning with the NYPD, currently the world’s largest police force. This accessible, narrative-driven series pulls back the curtain on the myths and systemic failures that have long shaped public safety debates and policies.
As the oppressive policies of ICE and Homeland Security expand into more violent and repressive tactics, Empire City provides the context we need to organize and push back.
Through Crooked Ideas, we’re expanding the reach of Empire City to the public, to educators and to movement leaders, equipping them with tools to reframe the conversation around policing and safety. By connecting the historical legacy of American policing to its current reality, we aim to dismantle dangerous narratives, confront misinformation, and help build a future where safety is defined by care, accountability, and justice—not fear and punishment.
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