Blog
May 29th 2008 · Read More ·
On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was fatally shot by James Earl Ray on his motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. No one could predict what would follow as riotous chaos would soon envelope much of urban America. Baltimore was not any more immune to this racial unrest as violent disturbances broke out two days later in various neighborhoods throughout the city. Over the course of three days of looting and rioting, six people died, hundreds were injured and thousands were imprisoned. The property damages, both public and private, numbered over $13 million.
Yet we find ourselves here forty years later. As Mr. King said himself, “Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.” There is an overwhelming consensus that the riots of ’68 have cast a palpable shadow upon the city of Baltimore. How is this true of our inner-city neighborhoods that have been affected by these riots? Where have we healed? Where does our city still bear the scars? Where is she still bleeding? Are there economic, spiritual, social, and racial consequences as well?