Baltimore Sun

A time of renewal for Baltimore

By ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS
APR 22, 2016 | 11:55 AM

It has been nearly one year since I spoke at Freddie Gray's funeral — and since our city found
itself in the throes of unrest. During the past year, I have had the opportunity to work with many
people who are dedicated to securing a better future for our city and our nation. Yet, at this one-
year mark, we are still seeking the answers to the question that I asked when facing the cameras
in the pews at New Shiloh Baptist Church.

"Did you truly see Freddie Gray while he was alive?"

The answers to why we have failed to truly see the Freddie Grays of our society are complex, but
this much is clear: We have not done enough to assure pathways to opportunity for all the people
of our community. We have relied too heavily upon our law enforcement officers and mass
incarceration to address the most crippling segregation of all — the segregation from hope that is
an inevitable consequence of generational poverty.

The obstacles that prevented our truly "seeing" Freddie Gray and prevented him from becoming
all God meant for him to be, did not begin when he was born, or even when I was young more
than half a century ago.

I was a student at Baltimore City College when President Lyndon Johnson's Kerner Commission
examined the cause of rioting in American cities during the 1960s.

More than a century after the end of slavery, the Commission concluded that "our nation is
moving toward two societies, one black and one white — separate and unequal."
Less than two months later, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and Baltimore was
engulfed in riots for an entire week.

Fast-forward nearly 50 years, and the images of Baltimore on the TV mere hours after Freddie
Gray's funeral were uncomfortably familiar.

Having lived through the riots of 1968, it pained me to see another generation of young
Baltimore residents crying out in anguish and frustration at the reality that, despite a century and
a half of struggle, far too many of the same barriers to opportunity remain.

The tenacity of these inequities has instilled desolation and anger in young Americans of every
racial background, but it is clear that extreme poverty and over-incarceration have been imposed
disproportionately upon people of color.

The Congressional Joint Economic Committee recently found that more than 25 percent of all
African-Americans nationally still live in poverty; the median net worth of white households is
13 times greater than the level for black households; and the unemployment rate for African-
Americans nationally is still more than double the unemployment rate for whites.

Since 1980, the failed war on drugs has increased the number of federal prisoners by more than
700 percent, while the U.S. population has grown by just more than 32 percent. Academic
studies highlight the racial disparities within the system, including that prosecutors are twice as
likely to impose mandatory minimum sentences on African-American defendants than on white
defendants who committed similar crimes.

Yet, for all these challenges, my faith in America and Baltimore remains strong. We have the
ability to build a better community if we work together to channel our pain and frustration into
sustainable political will.

We must work to implement reforms like the Baltimore Metropolitan Council's Plan for
Sustainable Development that offer practical remedies for the extensive pockets of generational
poverty that beleaguer our region.
The plan is practical and achievable, focusing upon workforce training that will qualify more of
our neighbors for mid-skilled jobs that pay living wages, expanded public transit services to
connect working families to jobs and training opportunities and more affordable housing near
existing and planned job centers.

We must continue our efforts to moderate the use of force by our police officers and
comprehensively reform why we put people in prison, what happens to them there and how they
return to society.

We must remain committed to bringing much-needed federal funding to our inner-city

neighborhoods, helping formerly-incarcerated individuals have a fair shake in applying for
employment and investigating the troubling trend toward privatization of our criminal justice
system.

Baltimore will always be at the heart of my commitment to ensuring that the Congress addresses
these challenges in meaningful and substantive ways. Yet I realize that lasting change for
Baltimore and all of the underserved communities nationwide will require a sustained
commitment from us all.

Fifty years from now, there should not be another person in his 60s pained to see the same
unfairness and inequity that led to the unrest that I saw as a teenager in 1968.

In achieving this vision, the dedication and hard work that I have witnessed in my neighbors here
in Baltimore since last year have been inspiring.

I remain convinced that, working together, we can assure that history remembers April 2015 as a
time of rebirth for Baltimore and our nation — the moment when we began to truly see all of our
people and include them in America's promise of opportunity for all.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings is a Democratic congressman from Baltimore.