Simon Balto

Biography

I am a historian of the twentieth-century United States, with a particular focus and expertise in African American history. While I am interested in the history of social movements, urban history, and a range of other subjects, I am especially interested in the history of the criminal punishment system in the United States: how it’s been constructed; what and who gets criminalized and punished within it; what acts of harm are deemed non-criminal when committed by certain people; and how the institutions that constitute the system come to bear unevenly across society.

My first book, Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2019. The winner of the Benjamin Hooks Institute’s National Book Award for the best book in civil rights history, as well as the Union League Club of Chicago’s award for the best book on Chicago history, Occupied Territory explores the twentieth-century transformation of the Chicago Police Department into an institution whose most important features were its massive racial disparities in general and its profound anti-Blackness in particular. Largely focused on the late 1910s to the early 1970s, the book challenges conventional wisdom about the policing crisis in the United States, looking back well before the federal drug and crime wars of the late twentieth century that many Americans assume to be the crisis’s starting point. Instead, I explore how local politicians and police officials built a huge, and hugely racially repressive, local police apparatus mostly on their own in the decades before those wars.

I am currently at work on several new projects. The first (under contract with Norton) is a history of white mob violence from Reconstruction to the civil rights era, the relentless decriminalization of such terrorism when it took place, and the ways that such violence shaped the nation socially, culturally, politically, and economically. The second (under contract with Haymarket Books), titled “’I am a Revolutionary’: The Political Life and Legacy of Fred Hampton,” is a biography of the life and political afterlife of Fred Hampton, the organizer and leader of the Illinois Black Panther Party who was murdered by the FBI and the Chicago Police Department in 1969 at the age of twenty-one. I am also currently co-editing a volume with Erik Gellman that’s tentatively titled Revisiting the Black Metropolis: New Histories of Black Chicago, which is under contract with the University of Illinois Press.

I’m a steady believer in the idea that those historians who are so inclined to be public-facing have a lot to offer in such a capacity. As a result, I do a lot of work that involves engaging the public through written commentary and TV/radio appearances. Thus, in addition to my scholarly writing for journals like The Journal of American History, The Journal of African American History, The Journal of Urban History, and Labor, among others, I’m a regular contributor for The Guardian and have written for TIME, The Washington Post, The Baffler, and The Progressive, among others. I’ve also done TV, radio, or podcast interviews with the BBC World News, CNBC, Al-Jazeera, and Intercepted, among others, as well as dozens of interviews with print journalists around the world.

Education

Ph.D., History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2015
M.A., African-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2010
B.A., History, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Books

Selected Publications

Academic:

• “Racial Framing: Blackface Criminals in Jim Crow America,” The Journal of American History 111:2 (September 2024): 290-318
• “Abolition, Community Control, and the Right to the City,” Modern American History 6:1 (March 2023): 74-77
• “White Innocents: On the Decriminalization of White Terrorism in America,” American Quarterly 74:3 (September 2022): 615-622
• “Police and Crime in the American City,” co-authored with Max Felker-Kantor, The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, published May 18, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.56
• “White Rage, White Liberals, and the Making of the Second Ghetto,’” Journal of Urban History 46:2 (March 2020): 511-515
• “The Carceral State’s Origins, from Above and Below,” Labor: Studies in Working-Class History 14:4 (December 2017): 69-74
• “‘Occupied Territory’: Police Repression and Black Resistance in Postwar Milwaukee,” Journal of African American History 98:2 (Spring 2013): 229-252

Non-Academic:

• “Crime in the U.S. is once again falling. Can we rethink policing?” The Guardian, January 17, 2024
• “The killing of Tyre Nichols was heinous and shocking. It also was not an aberration.” The Guardian, January 28, 2023
• “How was the first January 6 hearing? Our panel weighs in.” The Guardian, June 10, 2022
• “No, more police won’t make New Yorkers – or anyone else – safer. It never does.” The Guardian, April 19, 2022
• “Policing’s History Argues Against Reform,” in The Long Year: A 2020 Reader, edited by Thomas J. Sugrue and Caitlin Zaloom (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022)
  • First published as “How to Defund the Police,” Public Books, November 20, 2020
• “We are told America is living through a ‘racial reckoning.’ Is it really?” The Guardian, May 25, 2021
• “Free as in Fred,” The Baffler no. 57 (May 2021)
• “Were Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office a success? Our panel’s verdict,” The Guardian, April 30, 2021
• “There’s hope for racial justice in America. But it comes from the people—not the courts,” The Guardian, April 22, 2021
• “This Much Is Clear: Derek Chauvin’s Trial Won’t Change American Policing,” The Guardian, April 15, 2021
• “The Police and Black Rebellion — A Review of American on Fire,” The Metropole: The Official Blog of the Urban History Association, April 15, 2021
• “What ‘Defund the Police’ Really Means,” Washington Post, February 9, 2021
• “How to Defund the Police,” Public Books, November 20, 2020
• “The Blues of 1919: On History and Poetry,” Process: A Blog for American History, July 16, 2020
• “Occupied Territory: An Author’s Response”, Black Perspectives, April 10, 2020
• “Contesting Police Power: A Conversation between Simon Balto and Max Felker-Kantor,” Radical History Review’s “The Abusable Past,” July 11, 2019
• “Concerning David Garrow’s Allegations Against Dr. King,” MLK50: Justice through Journalism, June 6, 2019
• “What Was Missing from Memphis on the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King’s Assassination,” TIME, April 5, 2018
• “Commemorations in Memphis Show that How We Remember Martin Luther King Jr. Is Changing,” TIME, April 4, 2018
• “Why Police Cheered Trump’s Dark Speech,” Washington Post, July 31, 2017
• “Chicago’s History of Stop-and-Frisk Laws Is a Warning,” TIME, September 2016

Invited Talks & Research Presentations

• Invited Lecture, “White Innocents: Racial Violence, Law Enforcement, and Culpability in U.S. History,” California State University – San Bernadino, April 2025
• Invited Panelist, “Laundering Black Rage with Too Black and Rasul Mowatt,” The Havens-Wright Center at UW-Madison, January 2025
• Invited Lecture, “White Innocents: Racial Violence, Law Enforcement, and Culpability in U.S. History,” UW-Madison Center for the Humanities, March 2024
• Invited Lecture, “White Innocents: Terror, Racism, and Innocence in the Making of Modern America,” Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, Nov. 2023
• Invited Panelist, “When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America: A Conversation between Heather Hendershot and Simon Balto,” The Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, June 2023
• Invited Keynote, “The Reform Trap: The Chicago Police Department, the 1960s, and the Dilemma of Police Reform,” University of Illinois-Chicago Gilbert Ososfsky Lecture, April 2023
• Invited Panelist, “Power and Politics in New Jersey: 50 Years after Rebellion in Camden,” Rutgers University History Department, April 2023
• Invited Panelist, “Black Humanity Still Matters: A Teach-In on Race and Policing in the U.S.,” Florida International University Center for Humanities in an Urban Environment, February 2023
• Invited Panelist, “Policing, Violence, and Surveillance: Local, Historical, and Legal Perspectives,” University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for the Humanities, March 2022
• Invited Lecture and Workshop, “Racial Framing: Blackface Criminals in Jim Crow America,” Rutgers University Center for Historical Analysis, November 2021
• Invited Lecture, “Occupied Territory: A History of Racist Policing in America,” George Washington University, October 2021
• Invited Lecture, “Occupied Territory: A History of Racist Policing in America,” Temple University, September 2021
• Invited Lecture, “Racist Policing in America,” Carnegie Mellon University, April 2021
• Invited Keynote, “Policing Black Chicago, Historically and Now,” DePaul University Student History Conference, April 2021
• Invited Lecture, “The History Behind America’s Police Crisis,” Southwestern University, April 2021
• Invited Panelist, “Police Violence in Global and Local Context,” Dartmouth College, April 2021
• Invited Lecture, “The History of Defunding the Police,” Mitchell Hamline School of Law, February 2021
• Invited Lecture, “Police Racism, Repression, and Torture in Chicago,” University of Illinois-Springfield, February 2021
• Invited Panelist, “Reducing Racial Inequalities in the Criminal Justice System,” The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, January 2021
• Invited Lecture, “The History Behind America’s Police Crisis,” Lehman Center for American History at Columbia University, November 2020
• Invited Lecture, “Occupied Territory: A History of Racist Policing in the United States,” Havens Wright Center for Social Justice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, November 2020
• Invited Lecture, “The History Behind America’s Police Crisis,” The Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University, October 2020
• Invited Lecture, “Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago,” The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change, October 2020
• Invited Panelist, “Race and Policing in America,” University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, October 2020
• Invited Lecture, “Race and Police,” Washington and Lee University, October 2020
• Invited Lecture and Workshop, “Racial Framing: Blackface Criminals in Jim Crow America,” University of Edinburgh Centre of the Study of Modern and Contemporary History, October 2020
• Invited Panelist, “Resisting Police,” Arizona State University, September 2020
• Invited Panelist, “Reimagining/Reinventing Police,” Online conference hosted by the University of Chicago, July 2020
• Invited Panelist, “Confronting Racism: Policing,” Indiana University Center for Research on Race & Ethnicity in Society, July 2020
• Invited Panelist, “Police Violence in the U.S.: How Did We Get Here?,” Online roundtable hosted by the Urban History Association, July 2020
• Invited Panelist, “Historical Perspectives on Anti-Black Violence and Visions for the Future,” University of Iowa Center for Human Rights, June 2020
• Invited Lecture, “Understanding the Roots of the Crisis of Racist Policing,” University of Rhode Island, South Kingstown, Rhode Island, April 2020 [Canceled due to COVID-19]
• Invited Lecture, “Understanding the Roots of the Crisis of Racist Policing,” University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, March 2020 [Canceled due to COVID-19]
• Invited Lecture, “Understanding the Roots of the Crisis of Racist Policing,” Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, March 2020 [Canceled due to COVID-19]
• Invited Lecture, “Understanding the Roots of the Crisis of Racist Policing,” University of Illinois-Chicago Center for the Humanities, February 2020
• Invited Lecture, “Occupied Territory: Policing Black America in the Twentieth Century,” University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, February 2020
• Invited Lecture, “Race and Police: Historical and Contemporary Issues of Policing Brown and Black Communities,” Ball State University, Muncie, IN, February 2020
• Invited Lecture, “Occupied Territory: Policing Black America in the Twentieth Century,” Ball State University, Muncie, IN, February 2020
• Invited Lecture, “Occupied Territory: Policing Black America in the Twentieth Century,” University of Chicago Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, Chicago, IL, January 2020
• Invited Lecture, “Chairman Fred Hampton and the Struggle for Chicago,” Dominican University, River Forest, IL, January 2020
• Invited Lecture, “Understanding the Roots of the Crisis of Racist Policing,” New York University, New York, NY, October 2019
• Invited Lecture, “On the Road to Abolition: Archiving Resistance to the Carceral State,” Barnard Center for Research on Women, Barnard College, New York, NY, October 2019
• Invited Lecture, “Policing Racial Violence: 1919 and Beyond,” Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots, Chicago History Museum, Chicago, IL, October 2019
• Invited Lecture, “Occupied Territory: Policing Black America,” Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, NY, October 2019
• Invited Panelist, “Policing, Violence, and Torture in Chicago: A Conversation between Simon Balto and Laurence Ralph,” Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, October 2019
• Invited Lecture, “What a History of Policing Tells Us About Postwar America,” Armstrong Lecture Series on Law and History, Bradley University, Peoria, IL, March 2018

Advisor To

• Aydan Fusco
• Emma Donnelly

Selected Awards

• Carr Center for Human Rights Policy Fellowship, Harvard Kennedy School (2022-23, renewed for 2023-24)
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2021-22)
• American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (2020-21)
• University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Research in the Humanities Fellowship (2020-21)
• The HistoryMakers Andrew W. Mellon Academic Research Fellowship (summer 2020)
• Benjamin V. Cohen Peace Fund Fellowship (2017-18)
• National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipends Fellowship (summer 2017)

History Courses

• History 102 – American History, From the Civil War to the Present – Syllabus 2025 (pdf)
• History 155 – The Long Black Freedom Struggle from the Civil War to the Present – Syllabus 2025 (pdf)
• History 227 – The Making of Black Lives Matter: A History of a Movement – Syllabus 2023 (pdf)
• History 900 – Introduction to History for U.S. Historians – Syllabus 2025 (pdf)
• History 952 – Seminar in Comparative History: Policing, Prisons, and Punishment – Syllabus 2024 (pdf)