Arrival of freedmen and their families at Baltimore, Maryland – an everyday scene. Library of Congress/Frank Leslie

Jessica Millward writes:

“African-American rights in Baltimore have always been in jeopardy. The recently released report from the Department of Justice on the Baltimore Police Department is sobering, but not surprising.

“As a scholar of early African-American history in Maryland, I see similarities between laws regarding enslaved and free blacks living in Baltimore prior to the Civil War, and the overpolicing of African-Americans today. African-Americans in antebellum and contemporary Baltimore share the same problem: limits on black freedom…”

Read it all: DOJ report on Baltimore echoes centuries-old limits on African-American freedom in the Charm City | The Conversation