In How to Lose the Hounds Celeste Winston explores marronage—the practice of flight from and placemaking beyond slavery—as a guide to police abolition. She examines historically Black maroon communities in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, that have been subjected to violent excesses of police power from slavery until the present day. Tracing the long and ongoing historical geography of Black freedom struggles in the face of anti-Black police violence in these communities, Winston shows how marronage provides critical lessons for reimagining public safety and community well-being. These freedom struggles take place in what Winston calls maroon geographies—sites of flight from slavery and the spaces of freedom produced in multigenerational Black communities. Maroon geographies constitute part of a Black placemaking tradition that asserts life-affirming forms of community. Winston contends that maroon geographies operate as a central method of Black flight, holding ground, and constructing places of freedom in ways that imagine and plan a world beyond policing.

Celeste Winston is Assistant Professor of Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University.

Acknowledgments  ix
Prologue  xiii
Introduction  1
1. Maroon Folklore as an Abolition Technology  21
2. The Fugitive Infrastructure of Maroon Geographies  37
3. Maroon Justice  65
4. Community beyond Policing  87
5. Maroon Geographies and the Paradox of Abolition Policy  109
Epilogue: Abolition Future Folklore  129
Notes  133
References  139
Index  159