BMORENEWS.com

Black man searched for drugs in Historic West Baltimore on Pennsylvania Avenue.

By Doni Glover, www.bmorenews.com

ATTENTION: CONCERNED CITIZENS

What: HISTORIC WEST BALTIMORE TOWN HALL MEETING Featuring Druid Heights, Greater Mondawmin, Sandtown-Winchester, Upton, Harlem Park, Coppin East & Beyond

When: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 from 6 to 8 pm

Where: Sharon Baptist Church, 1373 North Stricker Street, Baltimore, MD 21217

Why: Housing, Crime, Economic Development – and particularly Historic Pennsylvania Avenue Business Corridor

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Brought to you by Baltimore City Councilman Bill Cole
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(BALTIMORE – April 25, 2009) – While I have lived and spent much time in Historic East Baltimore – from Patterson Park to Dunbar to Greenmount Avenue, I have spent significantly more time on the Westside.

I remember Provident Hospital and The Met Theater. I can fondly reflect on childhood memories at Mathew Henson Elementary School and my incredible tenure at James Mosher Baseball with some of the greatest players and coaches in the world. And I can recall jumping on the #13 headed east from around Coppin State College and selling Afro newspapers to riders and anybody else who might buy one.

Since then, adulthood has blessed me with – among other things – a wonderful career as editor of the former Sandtown-Winchester ViewPoint. That newspaper was produced by the former Community Building in Partnership, Inc. or CBP. CBP was meant to be a community-driven engine that would help folks with employment and housing, essentially. A third but less tackled goal was economic development. Interestingly, the community never led the process; it was always some bumbling outsider speaking for the community. I think the Indians would call them one who speaks with fork tongue. 

I would go from CBP downtown to work under the great Diane Bell-McKoy. She, at the time, was President and CEO of Empower Baltimore Management Corporation (EBMC), also known as the Baltimore Empowerment Zone. It was a $100 million federally-funded HUD initiative that touched at least 6 American urban centers. For the record, Mrs. Bell-McKoy led our effort to #1 in the country. There, at EBMC, we successfully helped many people get employment, homes, and grow their businesses.

Since this time, much has changed. Yes, the Annual James Mosher Little League Baseball Opening-Day Parade and Game will take place today beginning at 12 noon at Evergreen Park down off Edmonson Avenue. However, in my block alone, there are about 20 vacant houses. Back in the day, Baltimore was full of people: A million strong. Now, I guess everybody has moved to Randallstown or Prince George’s County or somewhere in between.

In any event, our inner-city – both East and West – has been forgotten again. Now, we know about the 40 year exodus from 1960 to 2000. Yet, something stopped. Community development corporations – thanks to a serious re-direction of state and local funds with no help from the George Bush administration and the fact that black leadership was dying off – from Congressman Parren J. Mitchell to State Senator Clarence Blount to Delegate Howard “Pete” Rawlings.

For years, I have been asking: Who will lead?

The answer is self-evident: We will.

There is a saying: “We, the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much for so long with so little that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.”

I am reminded that our president is black. I am also reminded that Maryland has never had a black governor or a US Senator. And, while our neighbor to the South has had a black mayor for 30 years, Baltimore has had a black mayor for half that time, including Clarence “Du” Burns, Kurt Schmoke, and today, Sheila Dixon.

Personally, I think blacks control very little resources in Maryland.

And for me, that is the conundrum. Selfishness and stinginess have permeated our black community such that despite the estimated $45 billion annually garnered by blacks between Baltimore and DC, there are so many black hell-holes where drugs and dilapidated buildings quickly sour the eye and sicken the stomach – especially in Baltimore.

So, now – we have a black mayor again, and, for the first-time ever, a black president.

Here’s the hit: Now is the time for the black community to get what we’ve never gotten before; however, we must take the ball and put in the hole. Nobody is going to do for us what we can and should do for ourselves. I say, let’s get busy …

Tags: black community