Results indicated that the police in Midwest City at the beginning of the 1970s were stopping a disproportionate number of Black drivers. Clear evidence also indicated that that African-American men, in particular were subjected to disproportionate vehicle stops by police. The findings suggest that current analyses of the disproportionate use of vehicle stops for Black drivers should look beyond the “war on drugs” and expand their analysis to the history of policing in the United States. The findings suggest that disproportionality in vehicle stops is not a new phenomenon and is not necessarily rooted in the attitudes and beliefs of officers who do contemporary police work. The authors also suggest that it is important to investigate whether race-based disproportionality in vehicle stops is linked to disproportionate criminal law violations. The study took place over a 15-month period in June 1970 when a group of specially-trained observers accompanied police patrol officers in “Midwest City” to gather data on vehicle stops and race. A total of 365 8-hour shifts that included 560 vehicle stops were observed. The observer-reported data were then used to construct four benchmark denominators of citizen contact with police: (1) owner victim; (2) owner accident; (3) owner other; and (4) total, which was a compilation of all the reasons above. Data were analyzed using statistical models. Tables, notes, references