Posted on January 28, 2026 in Featured Review
Authors:
Andrew M. MayerThree or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here, 2012–2025, by Jelani Cobb. One World, 2025. 466p ISBN 9780593978207, $32.00; ISBN 9780593978214
Jelani Cobb (dean, Columbia Journalism School), an award-winning journalist and staff writer at The New Yorker, has compiled a scintillating compilation of essays originally published between 2012 and 2024 (mostly in The New Yorker). His narrative journalism aims to explain and diagnose the malaise of racism plaguing American society from the presidency of Barack Obama through the second Donald Trump administration. Cobb previously wrote about Obama’s first presidency in The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress (2010), and is also the author of To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic (CH, Sep’07, 45-0195).
In the first section (“The Parameters of Hope”) of his latest book, Cobb opens with reflections on the senseless murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012, followed by further reflections on Black activism and the enduring struggle for civil rights in America. In the second section (“Winter in America”), he delves into the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Initially, Cobb thought the modern Republican Party was smart enough to see through a celebrity like Donald Trump as he campaigned for president in 2015–16. However, he and many others underestimated Trump’s persuasive powers by tapping into the latent racism of white America, especially following the tenure of the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama.1 Cobb was dismayed that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton lost, fearing a long-term Trump presidency, which has since come to fruition. The final essay in this collection defines both the 2016 and 2024 elections as an albatross around the neck of a free democracy—especially distressing now when Alan Dershowitz and other Trump supporters have speculated about the possibilities of a third Trump term. Underscoring the abnormality of an American president being impeached twice and then inciting the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Cobb charges the American electorate, Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court with complicity in the resultant backsliding from modern democracy.
Cobb shows through a series of essays how the nation at large was slow to react to Trayvon Martin’s murder by vigilante George Zimmerman
Parallel to this political disquiet, Cobb traces the unequal and unfortunate path of the modern civil rights agenda in the United States. Like many others before him, he glorifies the efforts of Thurgood Marshall in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and details the negative outcomes of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which yielded the “separate but equal” ruling, prolonging the Jim Crow era into the 1950s. Connecting these decisions back to the present, Cobb shows through a series of essays how the nation at large was slow to react to Trayvon Martin’s murder by vigilante George Zimmerman. Nevertheless, he sees this tragedy as a milestone over the past decade, as it galvanized a broader movement for social justice. Later on, for example, massive protests erupted across the nation in response to the murders of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice in 2014, and to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020 (during Trump’s first term), among many others, which altogether overwhelmed the country with outpourings of anger against police brutality toward people of color.
According to Cobb, the bigger issue in the United States is the proliferation of a lawless, gun-filled society that is ruled by racial violence, let loose by the MAGA movement and Trump’s promotion of white supremacy. We see this, for example, through the failed promise of integration. Supposedly, school integration occurred gradually across the nation in the years following Little Rock (1957), but in actuality it has been a lengthy, painful, and often unsuccessful process. Even today, in many major cities, schools remain largely segregated by up to 90 percent.2
In his third section (“History Lessens”), Cobb profiles the major figures and trends behind the dichotomies of Black versus white in America. For instance, he writes about lawyer, scholar, and civil rights activist Derrick Bell, one of the architects of critical race theory, which Nikole Hannah-Jones later expanded on in The 1619 Project (CH, May’22, 59-2690). He also explores George Floyd Square in Minneapolis after Floyd’s nationally publicized, shocking death at the hands of white police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020.
Since Thurgood Marshall, Black lawyers have played a major part in the fight for equality in the United States
More significantly, Cobb digs into the abuse of the Black community from the time of the Tulsa race massacre of 1921 through the efforts of W. E. B. Du Bois to combat discrimination and the troubled fortunes of Black veterans returning home from World Wars I and II. Since Thurgood Marshall, Black lawyers have played a major part in the fight for equality in the United States, including the current battles to uphold diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Most recently, renowned civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump has moved into the arena in support of the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Ultimately, Cobb determines that the United States has fallen short of its founding ideals and the modern Civil Rights Movement during both Trump administrations. He sees the necessity for Black politicians, clergy, and educators to continue the fight against white supremacy while advancing individual initiatives in education and history. As Three or More Is a Riot contends, Americans must remain vigilant in the ongoing fight for freedom and equality for all.
Cobb’s work, which complements New Prize for These Eyes (CH, Aug’25, 62-3079) by Juan Williams, expertly illustrates how difficult it is for Black America to persevere and challenge the current political agendas overwhelming the nation.
Summing Up: Recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.
Interdisciplinary Subjects: African and African American Studies, Racial Justice
Subject: Social & Behavioral Sciences
Andrew M. Mayer is professor emeritus at the College of Staten Island, CUNY. Previously, he was the night librarian for The Washington Post, head librarian for the New York Law Journal, and senior research editor for Wenner Media and Condé Nast Traveler. He has published over 100 professional book reviews for newspapers and academic journals.
 | Duncan Jamieson’s review of The Black President (2021), “America’s First Black President: A New Biography Considers Barack Obama’s Presidential Legacy“ |
 | Jack Fischel’s review of American Whitelash (2023), “A Vicious Cycle: Wesley Lowery Analyzes the Resurgence of White Identity Politics“ |
 | Andrew M. Mayer’s review of New Prize for These Eyes (2025), “Eyes on the Future: Juan Williams Chronicles the New Frontlines of America’s Civil Rights Struggle“ |
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