“I Ask Mercy at Your Hands:”
Henry Alfred Brown, Third-Degree Torture, and Black Grassroots Responses
to Judicial Inequality in 1920s Baltimore
Presented by Michael Casiano
In 1921, Black sailor Henry Alfred Brown was charged with murdering a white nurse in Annapolis. He held steadfast to his innocence until, he alleged, a brutal interrogation by two Baltimore police detectives elicited a confession. This talk investigates one man’s experiences to illuminate structural realities regarding racialized police brutality and the biases of Baltimore’s legal system.
Mike Casiano, assistant professor in American Studies at UMBC, is author of Let Us Alone: The Origins of Baltimore’s Police State, set for release in Fall 2025.
Reception at 7 PM; talk begins at 7:30
