About the Author

Arthur Browne has written the first-draft history of New York for more than forty years. As a reporter and editor, he has chronicled six mayors, from Abe Beame through Bill de Blasio, and coauthored I, Koch, a biography of Mayor Ed Koch. Browne presently serves as the Daily News editorial page editor. In 2007, he led a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for editorials that documented the epidemic illnesses afflicting thousands of 9/11 rescue and recovery workers.

Reviews

“An especially timely book”
—Kirkus Reviews

“The author provides a rich overview of the civil rights struggle in Gotham, and its place in the city's cultural and political history....Of interest, and recommended for, readers of civil rights histories.” 
—Library Journal

“Arthur Browne, a New York-based journalist, writes movingly of Battle’s fight not only to enter the NYPD but to succeed within it. . . . Although Battle died in 1966 without having seen his story published, it’s impossible not to feel how much he would have appreciated Brown’s work, which wraps the man’s own words in a reporter’s thorough, lively accounting of a life well lived.”
—The Boston Globe

“The magnificent—and moving—story of the first black New York City cop…struggling valiantly for dignity in a world more often interested in his marginalization (or worse)…forming a tragic but ultimately heroic understanding of the inner workings of the greatest city on earth.”
—Ken Burns

“You’d expect a newspaper editor with a Pulitzer to be up to speed on the news, and nobody knows New York better. What’s impressive about Arthur Browne’s book is how scrupulous he is in drawing on an unpublished biography by Langston Hughes, while contributing his own vivid portrait of a hero up against mobsters, corrupt pols, and imminent violence.”
—Harold Evans, author of The American Century

“One Righteous Man is one righteous biography—at times chilling in its account of Samuel Battle’s ordeal as a key black pioneer in Manhattan but ultimately inspiring as a record of his indomitable spirit. Browne’s book is also timely today as a commentary on the tangled webs of ethnicity and racism in the evolution of ‘New York’s Finest.’”
—Arnold Rampersad, author of The Life of Langston Hughes

“The relationship between the police and the community is one of the most important issues of our time—and so is the idea that ‘the police are the public and the public are the police,’ as Sir Robert Peel wrote in 1829. Sam Battle's towering example helped the NYPD get closer to that ideal. Today we look more like the city we serve than ever before, but Arthur Browne's terrific book reminds us that the journey to get here wasn't easy, and would have been impossible without a pioneer and hero like Sam Battle.” 
—William J. Bratton, Police Commissioner, NYPD

“This is a riveting and important read. Samuel Battle’s story reminds us that when it comes to fighting crime, empathy and respect are equally as powerful as batons and guns. One Righteous Man is an especially relevant contribution to our national conversation about how to best ensure every officer upholds the oath to protect and serve every American.” 
—Ben Jealous, former president and CEO of the NAACP

“Now, thanks to Mr. Browne’s fine work, Battle can take his place alongside Jackie Robinson and many others in the ranks of African-Americans who rammed open the doors that thousands more have since walked through, seldom knowing who made it possible.”
—Bryan Burrough, The Wall Street Journal

“What is seemingly about a pioneering trailblazer is really Arthur Browne’s sweeping treatise on the experiences of African-Americans from slavery to freedom, and it is very impressive in the rich detail and context in which he situates not only Samuel Battle but also Samuel Battle’s parents and grandparents going back to the Revolutionary period.”
—Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture