Hello listeners, I'm your host Amara, and this is Black Girl God, a true crime podcast.

The third story in our Black History Month series is the story of Cynthia Scott.

Over the past several years, the murders of unarmed black people at the hands of police

has been something that America has had to be confronted with time and time again.

Thanks to things like cell phones and body cameras, we are now able and some of these situations

to actually watch it happen. I've heard people say many times over these years that it seems

like it's happening more and more, but it's not. We just now have a better chance of someone filming it.

But issues of police brutality have been a part of the Black experience from the start of policing

in this country. Long before Sandra Bland, Corn Gaines, and Brianna Taylor, there was Cynthia Scott.

Cynthia Scott was 24 years old in the summer of 1963. At the start of the decade,

Detroit, like a lot of parts of the country, saw an increase in racial tensions over things like

housing and police brutality. Resetment in the Black community had reached a boiling point and

people were tired of the poor conditions of their living situations and harassment from police

for doing something as innocent as walking down the street. The murder of Cynthia Scott would only

add to the tension. On July 4, 1963, Cynthia had been out with friends. After hanging out for a while,

Cynthia met up with a friend of hers named Charles. In the early morning hours of July 5,

Cynthia asked Charles if he could walk her back to her apartment and Charles agreed.

According to Charles, as he and Cynthia approached her apartment, a police car pulled onto the

sidewalk in front of them. And without cause or provocation, an officer named Officer Spicer jumped

out of the car and began trying to arrest Cynthia. Now, of course, listening to this in 2022,

it sounds ridiculous that a cop would just jump out of the car and start trying to arrest

you for no reason. But for Black people in Detroit during this time, this was common.

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