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Michael Casiano presents "Let Us Alone: The Origins of Baltimore’s Police State" in conversation with Terrance WootenA compelling urban history, LET US ALONE uses voices from all levels of society to examine police power, incarceration, and the perils of being Black in post–Civil War Baltimore.
By the early twentieth century, postbellum assaults on civil rights and the advent of Jim Crow expanded Baltimore’s law enforcement into a vast network designed to oppress Black people. Michael Casiano’s history charts the institutional consolidation of the city’s post–Civil War police state.
Authorities in Baltimore organized and established municipal power in distinct but connected sites that included jails, areas of political and social activism, public schools, street corners, courtrooms, and homes. Casiano analyzes policing in light of two parallel and inextricable realities of the city’s governance. First, 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, decades of racial antagonism shaped Baltimore policing into an apparatus primarily oriented around subduing Black freedom.
Michael Casiano is an assistant 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 social history of early twentieth century port cities in the Mid-Atlantic that examines the relationship between policing, labor, and race. Mike has been involved in grassroots housing justice efforts in Baltimore for the past several years as part of Charm City Land Trusts, a community land trust located in East Baltimore, where he also lives. He is an affiliate faculty member in the Language, Literacy, and Culture (LLC) doctoral program and an associate member of UMBC’s graduate faculty.
Dr. Terrance Wooten is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Davidson College. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Maryland. Dr. Wooten’s scholarly interests are located at the intersections of Black studies, gender and sexuality studies, studies of poverty and homelessness, and carceral studies.
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