Interview with Simon Balto, author of OCCUPIED TERRITORY: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power

Hopeton Hay Podcasts · Sep 28, 2019 · 54m

In Simon Balto’s book, OCCUPIED TERRITORY, he examines the history of the Chicago police departments contentious relationship with the black community. He writes that over the course of the mid 20th century black neighborhoods were increasingly overpatrolled, underprotected and faced harassment, violence, and neglect from the Chicago police department. In particular he points to the racially biased use of selective enforcement by the Chicago Police Department in the 1960s as a tipping point in their repression of black communities.

Simon Balto is an assistant professor of African American…