Black Lives Matter: Fiery reportage is clouded by raw zeal

An indispensable book, even as it marshals only the rudiments of a long and painful story

After 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead by a police officer in St Louis in August 2014, the Black Lives Matter movement mushroomed into a nationwide phenomenon

Non-fiction: They Can’t Kill Us All: The Story of Black Lives Matter, By Wesley Lowery, Penguin, €11.50

During his farewell address last week in Chicago, Barack Obama talked about the (non-republican) elephant in the room. “Race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society,” he said. “Race relations are better than they were ten or 20 or 30 years ago . . . But we’re not where we need to be.”