A black sniper was responsible for the death of five police officers in Dallas, on the 7st of July, 2016.
A picture of the sniper, Micah Johnson, extracted from his Facebook account, shows some ancient attributes of black radicalism: the Pan African flag, popular during the 1960's, the clenched-fist salute of the black athletes in Mexico and a Black Power drawing.
In Himes' last novel, left unfinished, Plan B (1964 - chapter 8), two white policemen are patrolling in Harlem.
"Give them a burst from the siren', said Pan.
Instead, there was a burst from an automatic weapon from the front window of a third-floor tenement and the windscreen of the police cruiser exploded in a burst of iridescent safety glass. Not to mention the fact that Pan and Van were riveted to their black plastic seats by a row of 7.62 caliber rifle bullets that passed through their diaphragms."
At first sight, the conclusion is different. Micah Jones was killed by a tele commanded robot, the sniper in Plan B by a 105 mm tank cannon but Himes emphasizes the inhumanity of the tank: "No human life was visible within it. It was shaped like a turtle with an insect's antenna. It moved on rubber-treated caterpillar tracks. It didn't make any noise. It came quickly and silently, as if it knew where it was going and was in a hurry to get there."
Of course, the current situation is also different, with a black president, a black chief of police in Dallas, the importance of social networks and the public recognition of police brutality against black people. Still the modus operandi both of the killing and of the elimination of the sniper takes us back to the racial wars of the 1960's and to Himes' power of imagination.