Joshua Clark Davis: "Police Against the Movement"

Police Against the Movement shatters one of the most pernicious myths about the 1960s: that the civil rights movement endured police violence without fighting it. Instead, as Joshua Clark Davis shows, activists from the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee confronted police abuses head-on, staging sit-ins at precinct stations, picketing outside department headquarters, and blocking city streets to protest officer misdeeds. In return, organizers found themselves the targets of overwhelming political repression in the form of police surveillance, infiltration by undercover officers, and retaliatory prosecutions aimed at discrediting and derailing their movement.

The history of the civil rights era abounds with accounts of physical brutality by county sheriffs and tales of political intrigue and constitutional violations by FBI agents. Turning our attention to municipal officials in cities and towns across the US—North, South, East, and West—Davis reveals how local police bombarded civil rights organizers with an array of insidious weapons. More than just physical violence, these economic, legal, and reputational attacks were designed to project the illusion of color-blind law enforcement.

The civil rights struggle against police abuses is largely overlooked today, the victim of a willful campaign by local law enforcement to erase their record of repression. By placing activism against state violence at the center of the civil rights story, Police Against the Movement offers critical insight into the power of political resistance in the face of government attacks on protest.

Joshua Clark Davis will be joined in conversation by attorney and former Maryland State Senator Jill P. Carter.

About the Author:

Joshua Clark Davis is associate professor of history at the University of Baltimore. He is the author of From Head Shops to Whole Foods and the coeditor of Baltimore Revisited, and he has written for The Nation, Slate, Jacobin, and The Atlantic.

About the Moderator:

Senator Emerita Jill P. Carter, a Baltimore native, is a renowned civil rights attorney and Maryland State Senator who has dedicated her career to advocating for justice and equity. As the daughter of the late civil rights activist Walter P. Carter, her path has been shaped by a legacy of activism and community service. In 2003 she was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates, representing Baltimore’s 41st Legislative District, and in 2018, Carter was appointed to the Maryland State Senate and later elected to continue representing the 41st District. In December 2024, Governor Wes Moore appointed Carter to the Maryland State Board of Contract Appeals, and she resigned from the Senate in January 2025 to take on this new role.

About the Program:

• Doors will open to registered attendees at 6 pm.
• A local bookseller will be on-site and have books available for purchase.
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