COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL: MAY NOT BE FURTHER REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER Baltimore was burning There were roughly 5,000 By Michael Olesker National Guard troops with fixed bayonets and 500 state police BALTIMORE - On the night called out to try to restore calm, America had its four-day heart along with thousands of city attack 40 years ago this week, police working around the clock, Baltimore Mayor Tommy and they were all late by about a D’Alesandro III was having dinner hundred years. with Lou Azrael, the gray-haired columnist of The News American Business owners — almost all of them white — saw their life newspaper. savings go up in smoke. When they heard about the bullet that ended Martin Luther King Inner-city residents — most of Jr.’s life, Azrael turned to them black — watched the streets where they lived go up in smoke. D’Alesandro and said, “Tommy, you’ll have trouble now.” And yet it was only part of Looting and vandalism affected about But no one imagined how much. America’s season in hell. 1,000 Baltimore City businesses in the four days of riots following the 1968 Hundreds of U.S. soldiers were Forty years later, peering into assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. dying each week in Vietnam that that awful spring’s smoke and Lt. James V. Kelly Collection, University of Baltimore ashes and lingering bitterness, we spring, and the Selective Service still can’t fully measure how much announced the draft call for May Researchers trouble there was, and how was 44,000 men. Bobby Kennedy, painful it was for so many — and bidding for a Democratic detail effects how intoxicatingly liberating for so presidential nomination, was many others who had grown instead on his way to of 1968 riots frustrated marching peacefully assassination in a grubby Los and pleading for equal rights in Angeles hotel kitchen. In Richard on Baltimore reluctant America. Daley’s Chicago, the Democratic National Convention would bring businesses The simple facts about the massive political rioting. Baltimore riots of 1968 are these: By Andrew Cannarsa In four days and nights, beginning And in Memphis Tenn., the Examiner Staff Writer April 6, there were roughly 5,000 sniper’s bullet struck Martin In the aftermath of the riots in people arrested. Roughly 700 Luther King as he stood on a Baltimore following the injured. Roughly a thousand motel balcony and took his life, assassination of Martin Luther businesses looted or burned, and set off rioting in more than a King Jr. in 1968, city residents many never to reopen. Roughly a hundred American cities. faced a grim reality. thousand separate buildings set Forty years later, for all who were “What was most distressing to the ablaze. Six killed. Untold millions there in Baltimore, the memory is residents was when they realized, of dollars in property damage. still vivid of people standing in ‘We destroyed our own access to Immeasurable psychological streets littered with glass, many retail,’ ” said David Stevens, damage that has taken decades with tears in their eyes, crying, executive director of the Jacob France Institute at the University to heal. of Baltimore. “The King is dead,” or, “They got But his city was already coming Looting and vandalism affected The King,” almost as though Jesus undone. about 1,000 city businesses in the himself had been slain — and of four days of riots. Most of the On Gay Street, on the East side, a tear gas wafting through the rioters were arrested within 10 pamphlet was distributed to spring air, sirens screeching, fire blocks of their homes, meaning business owners. In honor of Dr. all around, and smoke rising they were likely ruining their King, it said, close your stores. above the remains of burned-out neighborhood store, said Peter The same kind of warning had buildings. Levy, chairman of the history and been circulated in Washington political science department at Broken glass, fire before it exploded. At twilight the York College of Pennsylvania. next day, a rock was thrown and troops in the city through a store window, and the “It was mostly smaller retail D’Alesandro was 38 years old that riots in Baltimore commenced. stores that were affected. The spring and considered Martin bigger department stores were D’Alesandro was in the war room Luther King a friend. In his years left relatively unscathed,” Levy at police headquarters when he on the City Council, D’Alesandro said. “Some [smaller stores] heard the news. Scores of fires had introduced plenty of long- never recovered.” were being set along decayed overdue civil rights legislation. For inner-city blocks. Here, poverty Levy and Kara Kunst, a graduate this, he heard white people call and bitterness were so ingrained student at the University of him a bum. That was the polite that King’s death was seen not Baltimore, studied the riots. language. only as tragedy but also as Knowing most of the riots As council president, he’d reached opportunity: No more begging for occurred along East Monument into black communities the way decent jobs, no more waiting Street, Edmunson Avenue, nobody but Theodore McKeldin around for decent housing that Greenmount Avenue, Harford ever had before. When he ran for had already taken a lifetime to Road and West North Avenue, mayor, he won 93 percent of the arrive. It was the fire this time. they surveyed the areas and black vote. Understanding the researched land records to At The News American, where I lateness of the hour when he took determine which buildings were had just started working, a city office, he appointed the city’s first businesses in 1968. editor named Eddie Ballard sent black solicitor, its first black fire every available reporter into the Kunst studied the effects on commissioner, its first black streets for the next four days and businesses in the decade after the members of the zoning board and nights. riots, saying the number of the parks board. lawsuits filed by insurance By nightfall on the first full day of None of this mattered; the era of companies from 1968 to 1979 the riots, there was broken glass good intentions was now was “absolutely impressive.” littering the streets like confetti, suspended for a brief glimpse of and streams of black smoke “The big question was, ‘Was the the apocalypse. coiling into the sky, and troops on city responsible for the damage to For many black people who heard city street corners with upraised the businesses?’ ” Kunst said. the news about King’s rifles. “The insurers were paying out a assassination, the riots became a lot of money to the businesses, At the corner of Eager and Ensor howl of pent-up rage, or anguish, and they eventually dropped their streets, by the Latrobe Housing or a moment to redress all of suits when they couldn’t prove Projects, city police began lining history’s outrages. For others, it the city could have done more to kids against a wall. The kids were was a once-in-a-lifetime chance prevent the riots.” violating a curfew ordinance, and to cash in, as stores and saloons the cops wanted to know why Some of the owners of the were looted at will, and then they were still in the streets. The affected businesses — mostly burned. dialogue was always the same: grocery stores, liquor stores, When D’Alesandro turned on the drugstores and taverns and bars Officer: “Where are you going?” television that first night, he saw — either tried to reopen but rioting in what seemed like every Teenager: “My mother’s.” couldn’t or abandoned the big city but Baltimore. “If we can venture altogether, Kunst said. Officer: “Where are you coming make it to Sunday morning, when The city took control of the from?” the ministers can talk in church, abandoned properties and sold we’ll be OK,” he thought. Teenager: “My father’s.” them below market value to new owners. One interesting aspect, Kunst discovered, was the role Korean Americans played in the revival of business in the area of West North Avenue, now called Station North. “That area had been badly impacted by the riots,” Kunst said. “A large number of Korean Americans that bought the shops and started their own corner stores. If you walk around the area, you can still see the influence today.” [email protected] Soldiers from the National Guard seal off a downtown neighborhood, where tear gas was eventually used to drive back looters. – AP file photos At North and Greenmount avenues, an entire neighborhood seemed to Street and North Avenue. rage against itself. In those days, there were still bars on Greenmount There were thousands of Avenue that wouldn’t serve black people. There were white food-store people already in the streets, owners who had no blacks working for them. If the owner got sick, he but they were momentarily simply shut the store down for the day. calm. Such places were among the first to be torched. D’Alesandro looked at the But there were others. Outside the Western District police station, ruins of his city, and he saw crowds raced through the street in hazy sunlight, hordes of people anger that hadn’t yet been panicked by police dogs or the sight of guns or the fires burning all spent. It wasn’t over, not yet. around them, racing down the block like some ocean wave that might By 5:30 that afternoon, the never stop because there was nothing there to stop it. first of 5,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division In the police station, the cells overflowed with the newly arrested and patrolled the streets, and the courtroom was strangled with defendants.