Policing in the United States has developed dramatically since the era of slavery and settler colonization. Understanding the evolution of American law enforcement is essential for grappling with how much public safety and punishment disparately affect Black Americans and people of color. This seminar focuses on the history of policing, civil rights, and Constitutional change in African American contexts for the purpose of providing educators with key strategies and historical tools to teach topics in Black history about law enforcement, social justice, and the Constitution. It examines how Black Americans challenged unequal justice during slavery, resisted predatory policing in the face of Jim Crow, and shaped police reform and the law enforcement profession in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. It also explores why community approaches to public safety surfaced to counteract police violence and discrimination within the criminal legal system leading up to today's age of mass incarceration. Participating educators will gain a deeper understanding of Black freedom struggles waged throughout American history to “establish Justice” and “secure the Blessings of Liberty” in “a more perfect union,” which long denied basic human rights on the basis of skin color and other forms of human difference. Ultimately, educators will complete this course better equipped and more inspired to teach hard histories that invite students in their classrooms to imagine equitable possibilities for promoting public safety for all. 

DeAnza Avonna Cook (she/her) is an assistant professor of contemporary African American History and Black Leadership at The Ohio State University. Her research specializes in race, social reform, and American law enforcement during and after Civil Rights Movement struggles in the 1960s. She deeply enjoys studying histories of social justice and social struggle and delights in teaching true stories about power and politics; policing and punishment; and freedom and liberation. DeAnza’s writing on criminalization and law enforcement in America’s past and present is featured in the Metropole, Black Perspectives, and Annual Review of Criminology.

DeAnza was born in Jacksonville, FL, but she spent most of her childhood in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountain region of small-town Virginia. She graduated with a BA in History from the University of Virginia where DeAnza studied the intellectual history of broken windows policing in America. Thereafter, she earned a MA and PhD in History from Harvard University.  DeAnza’s dissertation, Soul Patrols: Race, Representation, and the Limits of Police Reform in America, 1962-2022, examined the evolution of police reform, police-community partnerships, and experimental crime control in Boston and beyond at the dawn of the 21st century. Her current project builds upon her doctoral research to explore how evolving ideas and newfound identities in the American law enforcement profession ultimately revolutionized urban police business at the neighborhood and national level throughout the post-Civil Rights era. 

Before joining the faculty at The Ohio State University, DeAnza taught a Race, Civil Rights, and Constitutional Policing seminar for law enforcement officers in Virginia, as well as an African American History course for incarcerated youth and adult students in Massachusetts and volunteering with groups serving jails and prisons. Above all, DeAnza is passionate about learning Black History in addition to educating and empowering people inside and outside of prison walls. She adores cross-country roadtrips and returning to Boston and down South to visit family and friends.   

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