Red Emma’s

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.

A 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.

“Casiano’s book is an important addition to studies examining the roots of the carceral state in U.S. history. Casiano closely analyzes the growth and entrenchment of police power in Baltimore between the Civil War and the onset of the Great Depression. He takes a capacious view of police power and not only scrutinizes the actions of the Baltimore Police Department, but also a constellation of other actors, public and private. In doing so, he demonstrates the many ways in which police power impinged on the lives of African Americans, the poor, and mentally unstable citizens.” —Dennis Halpin, author of A Brotherhood of Liberty: Black Reconstruction and Its Legacies in Baltimore, 1865–1920

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. Specifically, it analyzes policing in light of two parallel and inextricable realities. 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. 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.

Nicole King, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of American Studies and director of the Orser Center for the Study of Place, Community, and Culture at UMBC. Her research focuses on issues of place, power, and economic development. She is an editor of the book Baltimore Revisited: Stories of Inequality and Resistance in a U.S. City (Rutgers University Press, 2019) and is working on a new book The Ungentrifiable City: Resisting the Slow Violence of Development with Displacement in Baltimore.