A plan to desegregate schools in a liberal Maryland suburb founded on values of tolerance has met with stiff resistance. By Dana Goldstein, New York Times. Columbia, Md. — The planned community of Columbia, southwest of Baltimore, has prided itself on its ethos of inclusion ever since it was founded more than half a century ago. Racially integrated. Affordable apartments near big homes. “The Next America” was its optimistic,…
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA — In a joint teleconference broadcast live from the Four Season’s Hotel in New York’s Financial District, the Black News Channel (BNC) and the National Newspaper Publishers Association announced the official launch date and time for the nation’s first 24-hour, 7-days a week all-news TV channel that will focus on African American news. The new channel promises to inform, educate, and empower nearly 50 million…
By Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker — By the time Representative Elijah Cummings left the pulpit during the funeral services for Freddie Gray, on April 27, 2015, he had delivered a word, as…
‘Huge Loss for Baltimore, Maryland, and the Nation’: Rep. Elijah Cummings Dies at 68 By Common Dreams — Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat and chairman of the House Oversight…
By Mahita Gajanan, Time — State leaders, city officials and resident and several Democratic presidential candidates have rushed to defend the city of Baltimore after President Donald Trump lobbed an attack against Rep. Elijah Cummings and his Maryland district, which includes much of the city. In tweets over the weekend, Trump claimed that Cummings’ Baltimore-area district is “considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States,” and called it…
Since Freddie Gray’s death in 2015, violent crime has spiked to levels unseen for a quarter century. Inside the crackup of an American city. By Alec MacGillis, The New York Times — On April 27, 2015, Shantay Guy was driving her 13-year-old son home across Baltimore from a doctor’s appointment when something — a rock, a brick, she wasn’t sure what — hit her car. Her phone was turned off,…
By Brittney Drakeford and Ras Tafari Cannady II, Greater Greater Washington — The effects of historic discriminatory urban design practices, such as redlining and racially-restrictive zoning, are by no means relegated to…
The solutions to Baltimore’s inequitable financing problems must be as radical as the policies that segregated the city in the first place, says Lawrence Brown. By Brentin Mock, City Lab — On December 19, 1910, the city of Baltimore passed an ordinance that a New York Times writer called “the most remarkable … ever entered upon the records of town or city of this country.” The ordinance made it illegal for any…
Even after decriminalization, nearly all of the people arrested for marijuana in Baltimore are black
There is a reason why the Baltimore Police Department was investigated by the Justice Department after the 2015 death of Freddie Gray. By Kelly Macias, Daily Kos — In 2014, when the state of Maryland voted to decriminalize the possession of 10 grams or less of marijuana, advocates said that it would help to reduce racial bias and systemic racism against black people. Even though data shows that blacks and whites use…
By Astead W. Herndon, The New York Times — BALTIMORE — The first “Amen!” rang out after a couple of minutes, as Senator Elizabeth Warren, speaking to an almost all-black…
The conversation is happening. Will you be a part of it? By Nick Fouriezos, OZY — What happens when you get a room of 100 Black men from Baltimore discussing…
Baltimore is going through the same policing pangs as the rest of the nation, but worse. By Nick Fouriezos, OZY — This is a homecoming for Gary Tuggle, only going…