This riveting account of the murder of Chinese American Vincent Chin in Detroit in 1982 and the ripple effects of its impact provides an in-depth look at events surrounding the brutal attack on Chin and the subsequent response of police, the justice system, and, above all, members of the Chinese American and broader Asian American community in Detroit. Their anger and grief spearheaded the start of a national pan-Asian activist movement that defied stereotypes, demanded justice, and expanded a sense of identity and solidarity. Chin died a few days after he was beaten with a baseball bat by two white men after they all argued in a club. It was a time when anti-Japanese/Asian sentiment in the city was high because of the struggling U.S. auto industry. His attackers later pled guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter and were given probation. By then, business leaders, lawyers, and others in Detroit’s Chinese American community had been joined by other Asian Americans in and beyond Detroit seeking justice for Vincent. They continued to do so through federal Civil Rights legislation, seeing both victory and defeat in subsequent years. This thoroughly researched and documented work allows individual stories and personalities, including Vincent Chin’s, to emerge. It also lets the facts, including conflicting accounts that were disputed, speak for themselves. An afterword places this story within the context of the pandemic and surging hate crimes against Asian Americans in a work that invites readers to think critically about racism, then and now. (Age 12 and older)

Winner of the 2021 Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Nonfiction

Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Young People's Literature

Finalist for the 2022 YALSA Award for Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction

An NPR Best Book of 2021

A Washington Post Best Children's Book of 2021

A Time Young Adult Best Book of 2021

A Kirkus Reviews Best Children's Book of 2021

A Publishers Weekly Best Young Adult Book of 2021

A School Library Journal Best Book of 2021

A Horn Book Best Book of 2021

A compelling account of the killing of Vincent Chin, the verdicts that took the Asian American community to the streets in protest, and the groundbreaking civil rights trial that followed.

America in 1982: Japanese car companies are on the rise and believed to be putting U.S. autoworkers out of their jobs. Anti–Asian American sentiment simmers, especially in Detroit. A bar fight turns fatal, leaving a Chinese American man, Vincent Chin, beaten to death at the hands of two white men, autoworker Ronald Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz.

Paula Yoo has crafted a searing examination of the killing and the trial and verdicts that followed. When Ebens and Nitz pled guilty to manslaughter and received only a $3,000 fine and three years’ probation, the lenient sentence sparked outrage. The protests that followed led to a federal civil rights trial—the first involving a crime against an Asian American—and galvanized what came to be known as the Asian American movement.

Extensively researched from court transcripts, contemporary news accounts, and in-person interviews with key participants, From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry is a suspenseful, nuanced, and authoritative portrait of a pivotal moment in civil rights history, and a man who became a symbol against hatred and racism.