Baltimore '68: Riots and Rebirth in an American City
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Baltimore ’68 Baltimore ’68 Riots and Rebirth in an American City edited by Jessica I. Elfenbein, Thomas L. Hollowak, and Elizabeth M. Nix TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122 www.temple.edu/tempress Copyright © 2011 by Temple University All rights reserved Published 2011 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Baltimore ’68 : riots and rebirth in an American city / edited by Jessica I. Elfenbein, Thomas L. Hollowak, and Elizabeth M. Nix. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4399-0661-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4399-0662-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4399-0663-7 (e-book) 1. Baltimore (Md.)—History—20th century. 2. Baltimore (Md.)—Social conditions—20th century. 3. Baltimore (Md.)—Race relations—History—20th century. 4. Race riots—Maryland—Baltimore—History—20th century. 5. African Americans—Maryland—Baltimore—Social conditions—20th century. I. Elfenbein, Jessica I. II. Hollowak, Thomas L. III. Nix, Elizabeth M. (Elizabeth Morrow), 1964– F189.B157B336 2011 975.2′6—dc22 2010050108 The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992 Printed in the United States of America 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1 Contents Foreword, by Howard F. Gillette, Jr. vii Preface xv Acknowledgments xxi ParT I: ApriL 1968 1 The Dream Deferred: The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Holy Week Uprisings of 1968 | by Peter B. Levy 3 2 Jewell Chambers: Oral History | edited by Linda Shopes 26 3 Why Was There No Rioting in Cherry Hill? | by John R. Breihan 39 ParT II: THE POLITicAL, RELIGIOUS, AND UrbaN PLANNING CONTEXT 4 “White Man’s Lane”: Hollowing Out the Highway Ghetto in Baltimore | by Emily Lieb 51 5 Spiro T. Agnew and the Burning of Baltimore | by Alex Csicsek 70 vi / Contents 6 Thomas Carney: Oral History | edited by Linda Shopes 86 7 “Church People Work on the Integration Problem”: The Brethren’s Interracial Work in Baltimore, 1949–1972 | by Jessica I. Elfenbein 103 8 Convergences and Divergences: The Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements—Baltimore, 1968 | by W. Edward Orser and Joby Taylor 122 ParT III: CONSEQUENCES FOR EDUcaTION, BUSINESS, AND COMMUNITY OrGANIZING 9 The Pats Family: Oral History | edited by Linda Shopes 145 10 How the 1968 Riots Stopped School Desegregation in Baltimore | by Howell S. Baum 154 11 Pivot in Perception: The Impact of the 1968 Riots on Three Baltimore Business Districts | by Elizabeth M. Nix and Deborah R. Weiner 180 12 “Where We Live”: Greater Homewood Community Corporation, 1967–1976 | by Francesca Gamber 208 13 Planning for the People: The Early Years of Baltimore’s Neighborhood Design Center | by Mary Potorti 226 14 Robert Birt: Oral History | edited by Linda Shopes 246 Epilogue: History and Memory: Why It Matters That We Remember | by Clement Alexander Price 259 Contributors 265 Index 269 Foreword Howard F. Gillette, Jr. t’s legitimate to ask why anyone would bother to open old wounds by revisiting the civic disorders that wracked our nation’s cities a Igeneration ago. Although some physical signs remain of that tur- bulence, for the most part the areas affected have been reconstructed, those who witnessed or participated in those events have largely moved on with their lives, and the urban issues that animated the period have, if not receded, been relegated to the periphery of civic discourse. At least that might appear to be the case. In fact, the riots live on in dif- ferent form, through the power of negative association with the places that suffered and the people identified with them, whether by chance or by purpose. The term “rolling riots,” referring to the breakdown of moral and civic rectitude associated with high levels of crime, espe- cially drug use and other antisocial behavior, is used by social scientists as well as social critics to label inner-city areas as incubators of the pathology associated with the disorders of the 1960s.1 No such simple reading of the breakdown of civil order prevailed at the time of the riots themselves, though it would be a mistake to suggest that consensus reigned at the time. The single most important assessment of the widespread phenomenon of rioting, the report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (also known as the Kerner Commission for its chair, Illinois governor Otto Kerner), issued in 1968, pointedly refused to blame the perpetrators alone for the consequences of their actions. Rather, the commission pointed to viii / Foreword underlying social conditions, most notably the concentration of poverty and the sharp restrictions on opportunity that characterized the areas where order broke down. Most notably, the commission blamed an unrelieved national pattern of racism. In perhaps its most famous—and contested— statement, the commission declared, “The nation is moving towards two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal. Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American.” These conclusions were echoed by a host of more specialized investigations, from California to New Jersey.2 The commission’s conclusions have made their way into the vast social science literature on poverty and disinvestment frequently enough in sub- sequent years, even as they became the object of ridicule from conservative commentators. If the general public has been swayed at all by the exchange about a very difficult issue, it has shifted to the right and not to the left, and the tendency of policy initiatives to emphasize crime prevention over social uplift reflects that prevailing view. The current situation is not unlike the one that emerged in the years following the abolition of slavery and the Reconstruction period that fol- lowed. While contemporary historians have demonstrated without doubt the essential purposes of Radical Reconstruction, providing freedmen rights under the law that had been closed to them as long as slavery existed,3 they had to overturn a consensual belief prevailing over several generations that these efforts had been thoroughly corrupt and detrimental to the nation. Leading scholars, with the notable exception of W.E.B. DuBois, perpetu- ated such readings of the past, which northern as well as southern whites were quick to embrace. As the historian David Blight has demonstrated so convincingly, the victims of this prevailing collective memory were the freedmen themselves, whose voices were all but silenced in civil discourse, even as the liberties they had gained under Reconstruction were eliminated by Jim Crow segregation laws in the South and equally restrictive social practices in the North.4 The launch of a Second Reconstruction, as the civil rights movement of the post–World War II era is often called, challenged prevailing wisdom about the past and projected a very different future for civic life. Hard-won battles at the local level cumulated nationally in the civil rights acts of 1964 and 1965 as well as open housing legislation adopted in 1968. In law if not in practice, all citizens could expect equal treatment. Some sort of backlash may well have been inevitable, but to be cred- ible it had to find an object worthy of contempt. The riots of the 1960s proved a godsend to this cause, for the damage not just to property but to the very concept of what constitutes a stable democratic system was severe. Here was the chance, not to call for new investment in the ghetto, but to assert a powerful defense of established values without making the appeals overtly racial. Not insignificantly, calls for law and order dominated not Foreword / ix just Republican discourse on the subject but that of third-party maverick George Wallace, whose popular image was burnished by his highly visible stand against federal efforts to integrate the University of Alabama in 1963. Significantly, the Republican position on inner-city blacks was neither uni- form nor inevitable. In the months that Richard Nixon faced primary oppo- sition from the more liberal Nelson Rockefeller for the 1968 presidential nomination, Nixon touted a plan to promote black enterprise. Modeled on the work of Philadelphia’s Leon Sullivan, Nixon’s proposal was comple- mented by GOP efforts to extend its reach into inner-city areas. With the encouragement of the Michigan Republican National Committee’s chair- woman, Elly Peterson, Republicans opened storefronts in Detroit that were not touched by the rioting that broke out around them in 1967. Over time, however, these efforts were abandoned. With Nixon tested on Vietnam by critics on the left and a possible challenge to his next presidential run from George Wallace on the right, he chose to deal with both phenomena at once, by unleashing Vice President Spiro Agnew to shore up his standing among conservatives by attacking civil disobedience in any form.5 In recent years, scholars have begun to revisit the riots and their larger context. Most notably, Kevin Mumford and Max Herman have thoroughly investigated civil unrest in Newark and Detroit.6 Their contributions are welcome and informative. It is possible that with time new readings will help overturn popular misconceptions of the riots, just as scholars of slav- ery and Reconstruction have altered national discourse. At the same time, university-based work has its limits, and that is why efforts to publicly commemorate the riots, and at the same time explore their meaning and consequences, are so important. Issues that had simmered for years were confronted and brought to public attention by, first, an exhibit in Newark and then conferences on the subject both there and in Baltimore. The occasion, in both instances, was a fortieth anniversary, enough time it seems to distance the public from the searing emotions associated with the experiences but close enough to bring forth witness from those who lived through that trauma.