The Gangs of Zion

Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author of Black Klansman, Ron Stallworth, returns with another firsthand account of trailblazing police work in the most unlikely place for a Black cop in the ’90s. Determined to pursue his passion for undercover work wherever it leads, Ron Stallworth finally lands in Salt Lake City, Utah. Once again, he’s an outsider—not only as a Black man on a mostly white police force but also as an unapologetic nonbeliever in a state dominated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. But soon after his first drug bust in the Beehive, Stallworth makes a startling discovery—Bloods and Crips are infiltrating Mormon Country, threatening to turn the deeply conservative community into a hotbed of crime. Kids are bombing homes while carrying pocket versions of the Book of Mormon, yet his fellow cops are in denial that gangs are wreaking havoc in their Christian town.  Now Stallworth has a new mission. Whether facing off with skinheads at a downtown bar or schooling white Crips blasting “F*ck tha Police,” he is intent on stemming the tide of gangs into the state. But those he expected to be his allies either have their heads in the sand or their own agendas—from the racist Mormon legislator to the community activist exploiting a fatal gang incident to spread paranoia over an imaginary race war. As he butts heads with these so-called leaders, Stallworth also realizes that gangsta rap has the key to the g-code. He becomes obsessed with—even defensive of—the music he once loathed and puts himself on the front lines of America’s culture war. Now he’s spitting uncensored lyrics before Congress and taking the stand in the 1993 murder case that puts hip-hop on trial. But the more Stallworth speaks truth to power, the more determined the gatekeepers in Utah are to silence him, and not even twenty-three years of police work could prepare him for how low they would stoop.