Government
1968 and the Invention of the American Police State
Baltimore's 1968 Holy Week Uprising was quite different from the events of this week. But the response to it helped set the stage for Freddie Gray.
Many have looked back to Baltimore's 1968 Holy Week Uprising to understand the conflict gripping the city this week. But today's events have roots less in that year's civil unrest and more in the nationwide law-and-order movement that was erected on its ashes.
Enormous economic and political changes transformed American cities amid the 20th century's great black migration to the north. The upshot was both civil unrest and a conservative backlash to it. In Baltimore, the uprising and its leading critic, Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew, helped change American politics forever.