Lunch & Learn: Let Us Alone: The Origins of Baltimore's Police State

Program registration is recommended but not required.

In this lecture, Mike Casiano will draw from his recent book, Let Us Alone, to explore the racial origins of policing in Baltimore. The lecture will detail two interconnected themes. First, it will examine how policing evolved from an inefficient and vigilante-driven system into a modern and paramilitary endeavor focused on suppressing citizens and maximizing the power, wealth, and reach of capitalists. Second, it will analyze how decades of racial antagonism shaped Baltimore policing into an apparatus primarily oriented around subduing Black freedom. Specifically, the talk will focus on the racialized nature of public order policing, the militarization of the Baltimore police, and violations of due process in the court system.

Mike Casiano is an associate professor in UMBC’s Department of American Studies and a core faculty member in UMBC’s Public Humanities minor. His book, Let Us Alone: The Origins of Baltimore’s Police State, examines the relationship between policing, municipal governance, and race in post-Civil War Baltimore. Mike’s next project is a labor history of early twentieth century port cities in the Mid-Atlantic that examines the relationship between policing, unionization, and race. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Oxford Bibliographies, the Journal of Southern History, and the Journal of Urban History

ASL interpretation will be available for attendees.

Presented in partnership with The Maryland State Archives and The Maryland Four Centuries Project.