As we count down to the Critical Social Justice: Baltimore 365 keynote event “Baltimore in Action: Always Rising” on Tuesday, October 20th, we’ll be profiling all of our keynote speakers in our “What You Need to Know” series. 

Rev. Dr. Heber Brown, III

Rev. Dr. Heber Brown, III

Rev. Dr. Heber M. Brown, III is the Senior Pastor of Pleasant Hope Baptist Church in Baltimore and a Team Leader of Baltimore United for Change – a coalition of activists and organizations working for social justice. As a clergy-activist, Dr. Brown has demonstrated a deep commitment to social justice. He has traveled throughout the U.S. and world speaking about poverty, racism, white privilege, the prison industrial complex, worker’s rights, environmental justice, sexism, food sovereignty and foreign policy. He is also a critical community organizer in Baltimore who is actively involved in grassroots and legislative advocacy. Between 2009 and 2013, he was a central figure in the campaign to halt the construction of a $100 million dollar youth jail in Baltimore.

“… the state is ready to spend millions of dollars to build a world-class prison, but we don’t have world-class schools and we don’t have world-class recreation centers, we don’t have world-class job opportunities, 21st-century job opportunities for our young people.. †

Dr. Brown is also committed to mentoring the next generation of change makers in Baltimore City. He is the Founding Director of Orita’s Cross Freedom School – a multi-site program which embraces African Heritage and Black History. More recently he also launched the Black Church Food Security Network which links Black Churches and Black Farmers in partnership to create a community-controlled, alternative food system based on self-sufficiency, food justice and food sovereignty.

“…normal prior to Freddie Gray [uprising] was unaccepatale, was inhumane, was cruel, as unjust. So we cannot go back to a normal. We have to recreate a new normal.” †

For more on Heber Brown, check out:

• His about.me page
• Follow him on Twitter and check out his YouTube channel 
• From the Marc Steiner Show –  Sound Bites: The Black Church Food Security Network

Here is a fun way to catch up on all our events for the month.

As we count down to the Critical Social Justice: Baltimore 365 keynote event “Baltimore in Action: Always Rising” on Tuesday, October 20th, we’ll be profiling all of our keynote speakers in our “What You Need to Know” series. This specific post will focus on a Baltimore neighborhood that plays an important role in the activism work of keynote panelist, Marisela B. Gomez. 

Middle East Baltimore 

Middle East Baltimore

Once a healthy working-class community, Middle East Baltimore has suffered from decades of disinvestment resulting in poverty, drugs, and violence. Just north of Johns Hopkins Hospital, the area occupies 20 square blocks within East Baltimore. It is bordered by Madison on the south end, Broadway on the west, the Amtrak railroads in the north, and Patterson Park on the east end. Most of its community members identify as African-American and low-income.

In 2001, the neighborhood was targeted for rebuilding and the expansion of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institution complex and would use the city’s powers of eminent domain to take over the properties to do so. Residents were not consulted about the proposed project and learned of it only through an article in the Baltimore Sun. Marisela B. Gomez and several others in the community organized together and formed the Save Middle East Action Committee to ensure the voices and experiences of residents being forced to move would be heard and considered by key stakeholders moving the project forward.

Quick Facts about Middle East Baltimore in the early 2000s: †

• Between 1990 and 2000 the population in the Middle East Baltimore community decreased by 45%. This was the greatest decline in population compared to any other area in Baltimore.
• In 2001, the reported rate of abandoned houses in East Baltimore was 13% but in Middle East rates were as high as 80%. Only 3 out of 10 houses were occupied in the area.
• Middle East residents had some of the worst health indicators in the United States.
• The local area public schools enrolled more than 70% of children qualifying for federally assisted free and reduced-price school meals.
• In Baltimore City, 25% of its residents had not graduated from high school. In Middle East, 49% of its residents had not graduated.
• The average household income for a Middle East resident was $29,000 compared to the Baltimore average of $55,000.

Depending on who you are or who you ask, you will receive a different story about Middle East Baltimore and its John Hopkins neighbor. Some will call it an investment, revitalization, and urban renewal. Others see it as destructive and unfair gentrification with deep racist and classist roots. To some it provides hope and to others it provides loss of community and a loss of home. It is a story worth unpacking and one that calls for a critical social justice lens.

“They argued that the law was allowing the city to take private property ‘for the pubic good.’ But exactly who is was the ‘public’ who would benefit if its residents were being forced to relocate with no plan for how they could return to benefit from this good?”†

Middle East Baltimore

For more on Middle East Baltimore, check out:

• Race, Class, Power, and Organizing in East Baltimore by Marisela B. Gomez (which is the source for all stats and information for this post) 
• Rebuilding the Middle East – a November 2008 article
• The Great East Baltimore Raze-and-Rebuild – a July 2013 article
• A Baltimore Brew take on Gomez’s book and the history of Middle East’s dislocation
• To learn more about Marisela B. Gomez, visit her #CSJ365 What You Need to Know post

As we count down to the Critical Social Justice: Baltimore 365 keynote event “Baltimore in Action: Always Rising” on Tuesday, October 20th, we’ll be profiling all of our keynote speakers in our “What You Need to Know” series. 

Jacqueline Robarge  

As a feminist, survivor, and activist, Jacqueline Robarge has spent more than two decades working to end gendered violence and oppression. Her work has included trauma healing and justice projects, white anti-racism organizing, action research, and a range of human rights advocacy.

I love the people here [in Baltimore]. I love the history of resistance here. †

Jacqueline is currently the executive director of Power Inside, a Baltimore harm reduction and human rights organization that she founded in 2001. Power Inside serves women and girls impacted by incarceration, street life, and abuse by providing direct client services, advocacy, leadership development, and public education to work toward systemic change.

I keep going back to that vow that I’ve committed my life to service. I think how lucky I am that I know what I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life. †

In her role as an appointed member of the Maryland Statewide Prisoner Reentry Task Force and the Governor’s Commission to Reform Maryland’s Pretrial System, she advocated for reform of policies that give rise to preemptive arrests and mass incarceration of people of color and people with disabilities.

For more on Jacqueline, check out:

• This fantastic activist profile on Unsung Baltimore
• Volunteer opportunities with Power Inside

Thursday, October 22, 2015

4:00 p.m., Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery

Ari Ne’eman will discuss the history of disability policy in the United States, how social attitudes and government policy towards people with disabilities have changed over the last fifty years and articulate how policymakers, activists and others can help set the stage for a more inclusive 21st century America.

Ari Ne'eman, UMBC and Sondheim Public Affairs Scholars alumnus (Political Science ‘10) is President and Co-Founder of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a national advocacy organization run by and for autistic Americans. Mr. Ne'eman recently completed a 5 year term as one of President Obama's appointees to the National Council on Disability. Earlier this year, Ne’eman was awarded the $100,000 Ruderman Prize, which recognizes an individual who has made extraordinary contributions to the inclusion of people with disabilities in the Jewish world and the greater public.