Wilbert L. Cooper

Author of
The Black Shield: An Epic Story of Family, Race, and Policing in America (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2025)

Wilbert is a writer. He’s penned scores of reported long-reads, personal essays, and news articles for publishers like the Guardian, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Vice. And he’s produced and hosted documentary films, travel shows, and live programs for platforms like Vice TV and HBO. His feature-length documentary "The Cleveland Strangler" was nominated for an Ellie Award in 2016. He was also named one of the Most Stylish Men in Media by Complex magazine, and one of the 40 Powerful Black Media Stars Under 40 by Rolling Out magazine. He’s currently on staff at the Marshall Project, reporting on race and law enforcement. And he’s writing a reported memoir called The Black Shield: An Epic Story of Family, Race and Policing in America, which will be published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Instagram / www.WilbertLCooper.com / Represented by Ayesha Pande

The Black Shield: An Epic Story of Family, Race and Policing in America (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2025)

Exploring what it means to be a Black cop in America and interweaving the story of the author's own family history in policing with the story of The Black Shield, a Black police organization in Cleveland, pitched as in the tradition of EVICTED by Matthew Desmond and THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS by Isabel Wilkerson.