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Brian Willingham is a police officer
with the Flint Police Department (Michigan). In addition to being former U.S.
Army Sergeant, husband and father of three, Brian Willingham is an accomplished public speaker and the author of Soul of a Black Cop.
According to Howard Zinn, Professor
Emeritus, Boston University, “Brian Willingham ’s extraordinary day-by-day account of his life as a cop reminds
us that behind at least one of those forbidding police badges is someone with compassion and a profound understanding of the
human condition. Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to sit beside a policeman in his cruiser and follow him through
the day? As we read Willingham ’s carefully crafted memoir, we are brought close to the scenes he describes: the beaten
women, the desperate shoplifters, the crack victims, the raped children, the mentally disturbed. But there are moments which
save him and us from despair: the smile of a child reminds him that "children are born happy. The world makes them sad." Willingham
sees beyond the cruelties of everyday life to the deeper sickness of a society that doesn't realize its own addiction to war
is reproduced in the violence on its city streets. He writes gracefully, with a generous spirit.”
According to one reader of Soul of
a Black Cop, “This work is a powerful, thoughtful look at the social collapse of a society
we most often ignore. Mr Willingham has created a provoking picture of America through his words; words of a cop, words of
a father, words of a son, and a neighbor. This book is moving, often heart breaking, but always sincere.”
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