Stewart was beaten and arrested by Manhattan police officers, leading to his death. In October 1984, an elderly and mentally disturbed woman named Eleanor Bumpers was shot to death by police officers attempting to evict her from her Bronx apartment. In December 1984, a white man named Bernhard Goetz shot four African-American teenagers on the subway after one of the boys approached Goetz for money. None died, but all were severely wounded. In his confession, Goetz said, “I wanted to kill those guys. I wanted to maim those guys. I wanted to make them suffer in every way I could… If I had more bullets, I would have shot them all again and again.” The jury found that Goetz acted in self-defense, guilty only of charges related tohis possession of an unlicensed firearm.

And in December 1986, just two months before Public Enemy’s album was released, three young African-American men whose car had broken down were attacked by a gang of white teenagers in the predominately white, middle-class neighborhood of Howard Beach. One of them, Cedric Sandiford, was severely beaten by his assailants. Another, Michael Griffith, was beaten and chased into oncoming traffic on Belt Parkway, where he was hit by a cart and later died of his injuries.

All these deaths, and the rampant discrimination and economic disadvantages African-American communities faced, was the fuel on which Public Enemy propelled itself to fame. Through music, the group created a conversation.

“Chuck D used to say they were the black CNN,” Reece says. “They were really speaking out against