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The @baltimoresun ran my op-ed re the initiative my law firm started to address local economic inequality. It touches on when Thurgood Marshall’s represented my Great Aunt in a suit against Balt Co. for failing to provide a public high school for Blacks... https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0828-black-businesses-law-firm-20200827-7pp7kcjhmnb7lh5kvw4a6giej4-story.html
2/ Despite Plessy v. Ferguson’s mandate that gov’t provide “separate but equal” accommodations, the County did not provide a high school for Blacks-segregated or otherwise. In the 1920s, yielding to pressure, the County eventually agreed to pay for “colored pupils” to attend...
3/ “colored high schools” in the City provided the pupil could pass an exam. My Aunt Margaret failed to secure a passing mark. This was not uncommon. Reportedly only 30 % of Black students leaving 7th grade passed and only certain students were encouraged to take the test
4/ Margaret would later recall being told there was no reason for colored girls to take the high school exam because they’d be having babies by their mid-teens.
5/ Having recently prevailed in securing admission for Donald Murray to integrate UMD Law School in 1935 on the basis that Murray’s exclusion from school was unconstitutional under Plessy because there was no “separate” State law school Marshall made a similar argument that…
6/ …Baltimore County’s policy was unconstitutional for failing to provide a separate high school. However, Marshall lost the case and the appeal with the MD Court of Appeals observing “the allowance of separate treatment [of the races, results in] some inequalities" that were...
![6/ …Baltimore County’s policy was unconstitutional for failing to provide a separate high school. However, Marshall lost the case and the appeal with the MD Court of Appeals observing “the allowance of separate treatment [of the races, results in] some inequalities" that were...](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EghdwD7UwAAdvNF.png "6/ …Baltimore County’s policy was unconstitutional for failing to provide a separate high school. However, Marshall lost the case and the appeal with the MD Court of Appeals observing “the allowance of separate treatment [of the races, results in] some inequalities\" that were...")
7/ inevitable and unobjectionable. This--even though had Margaret passed the test, she’d still have needed to take several streetcars to get from SW Baltimore County to Douglass High in the City.
8/ While a setback, the case was credited with helping to shape the legal strategy that led to SCOTUS striking down the doctrine of separate but equal in Brown v. Bd of Ed. It also led to County moving to finally create its first 3 colored high schools https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2006-02-18-0602180068-story.html
9/ GW Carver (Towson), G.F. Bragg (Sparrows Point) & B. Banneker (Catonsville) where Margaret's youngest sibling (my grandfather), would go as the first in the family to attend a high school (albeit, segregated) in the County
10/ As the first lawyer in the family, I was given the 1935 Lawyer's Directory my great-grandfather used to find Thurgood Marshall. In a classic early Smalltimore story, Thurgood's office was half a block from where I now work
11/ In a pernicious Smalltimore connection, the atty opposite Marshall in my Aunt's case was William Marbury, Jr. As noted in "Not in My Neighborhood," his dad, Marbury Sr., drafted Baltimore's racial segregation ordinances & devoted his life to "keeping blacks in their place"
12/ In the op-ed, I attempt to show how policies that promoted segregation (like racial ord's & Balt. Co. not providing a HS for blacks) still impact present day racial disparities in the City's economic development. https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0828-black-businesses-law-firm-20200827-7pp7kcjhmnb7lh5kvw4a6giej4-story.html
13/ And this is why our firm has opted to attack this enduring source of local racial inequality by repping new/small businesses that will grow/hire in local communities pro bono. H/t to our law clerk, @drewtildon for running point to launch this program. https://www.rosenbergmartin.com/building-black-owned-business-in-baltimore-initiative/
I unfortunately submitted this op-ed before the events of past week, because I'd have referenced the issues raised by @KimKbaltimore re the City’s ills because I think they are *largely* attributable to past policies that kept Blacks from suburbs https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0828-black-businesses-law-firm-20200827-7pp7kcjhmnb7lh5kvw4a6giej4-story.html
15/ --like Balt County's refusal to provide a high school education to Black students like my Great Aunt -- as well as current race-neutral policies and systemic issues that reinforce a cycle keeping low-income blacks isolated from middle-class suburbia
16/ And the suburban role in reinforcing the cycle of isolation is largely ignored by conservative & liberal commentators who tend to single-out local Democratic officials for blame.
17/ Conservatives blame the City’s history of corrupt Democrat party (sic) leadership, which may be true, but isn't sufficient to explain the City’s ills given a healthy history of corruption in the suburbs under both parties. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/investigations/bs-md-sun-investigates-cabezas-third-20190222-story.html
18/ and of course Cities with far left political policies have not led to entrenched poverty in cities like Berkeley or Takoma Park https://wamu.org/story/19/04/24/how-takoma-park-became-the-berkeley-of-the-east/
19/ Many liberal commentators have blamed City leaders' indifference to poverty in only investing in the so-called “White L,” but this doesn't quite square. Eg., in current dollars, $220 mm was invested in Sandtown-Winchester in the 90s with little impact https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/why-couldnt-130-million-transform-one-of-baltimores-poorest-places/2015/05/02/0467ab06-f034-11e4-a55f-38924fca94f9_story.html
20/ I think the role of Balt Co. is the underdiscussed & missing piece. The County's past discriminatory efforts to keep Blacks out are fairly well known, but I see few make the connection to today, when it's undeniable that there are flourishing Black middle-class n'hoods
21/ The historian @APaigeOutofHist 's book describes how the racial covenants pioneered in Roland Park, which were expanded on by the Federal Housing Administration to bar suburban subdivision developers from receiv'g loans unless the comm excluded blacks. http://cup.columbia.edu/book/how-the-suburbs-were-segregated/9780231179997
22/ A 1974 report from the U.S. Comm on Civ. Rights reported how Baltimore County built upon the FHAs policy with tactics like expulsive zoning that reportedly led to the elimination of over 20 Black-suburban enclaves by rezoning their land for industrial & heavy commercial uses
23/ The tactics were so successful that from the 1950s to the 1970s, while Baltimore County’s population exploded from 270k to 603k the Black population only grew by 1,500.
24/ As reported in @llanahan's book, The Lines Between Us, < https://thenewpress.com/books/lines-between-us> 30% of the 16k workforce at SSA’s new Woodlawn HQ were black, however, most commuted from the city because of a lack of affordable and open housing.
25/ The Report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights noted how Baltimore County like many suburbs, used its zoning powers to purposefully block the construction of moderately-priced housing for workers, effectively creating a “white noose” concentrating Blacks in the City
26/ Bc Balt. Co. provided no public housing, families living below the poverty level were sent on a "one way street for the poor" from the City from the County. And applicants from the burbs were given the same priority for public housing as city applicants.
27/ Even after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, through the 1970s, as reported in "Not in My Neighborhood," then- Baltimore County Executive, Dale Anderson, required realtors to notify police of sales of homes to black families.
28/ By the late 70s-80s when the housing market Baltimore County was *finally* open to black families, the past history of racial segregation hit Baltimore City particularly hard.
29/ Because most of the suburban development was comprised of more expensive single-family homes vs. apts and townhomes, only Black families with middle-or-higher class incomes were able to afford to move there.
30/ As they moved there, low-income Black families were left behind--and they were increasingly left behind at a time when multiple race-neutral policies and trends were devastating most American cities.
31/ The manufacturing jobs that had been a source of stable income and attracted domestic migration to cities like Baltimore were increasingly going overseas.
32/ In addition to federal transportation & highway policies making it easier for industries to relocate to cheaper suburban areas, a tweak to the tax code to allow for accelerated depreciation *accelerated* new construction in suburbs. Because big tax breaks were only…
33/ …available for new buildings and not for land or reinvestment in existing bldgs, investors were incentivized to pour money into shopping centers/malls, office parks, warehouse/distribution facilities in areas with low land costs (like suburbs) http://pedshed.net/?p=106 …
34/ …as service jobs moved out to the suburbs, low-income black families in Baltimore found themselves in n'hoods with a much larger proportion of poverty and joblessness.
35/ The social isolation & joblessness those left behind experienced were what sociologists like William Julius Wilson argued was the root of problems associated with concentrated poverty in The Truly Disadvantaged. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truly_Disadvantaged
36/ Lower-income black Baltimoreans left behind had little meaningful employment nearby, little educational/training opportunities for higher-skill jobs, and transportation barriers preventing them to reach jobs up I-83 in the County.
37/ As middle-class Blacks left to the County, formal social organizations that depend on their support/leadership (eg PTAs, schools, business, civic groups, churches) deteriorated.
38/ Not in My Neighborhood noted that the departure of many of @BethelNation's members to the suburbs motivated their proposal to relocate out to Old Court Rd that was scuttled by opposition to the County zoning relief req'd
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2001-11-14-0111140164-story.html
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2001-11-14-0111140164-story.html
39/ In addition to all those factors at work impacting joblessness and setting the fuse, the crack epidemic came to lit the match to destroy n'hoods.
40/ Wilson's observation has now been proven right: Black Baltimoreans experienced the phenomenon now known as "deaths of despair" experienced by the white-working class as their jobs have disappeared--just one generation earlier. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/books/review/deaths-of-despair-and-the-future-of-capitalism-anne-case-angus-deaton.html
41/ This is what @KimKbaltimore 's critique of Democrat (sic) party leadership in Baltimore misses. Clearly the issues impacting the City are beyond the capacity for local officials to solve on their own.
42/ Consider that bc of the one geopolitical issue of Pres. Trump's tariff war's impacting farmers, he provided them with a $32 billion bailout. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/14/donald-trump-coronavirus-farmer-bailouts-359932
By comparison, when cities like Baltimore were dealing with tectonic geopolitical shifts in the economy…
By comparison, when cities like Baltimore were dealing with tectonic geopolitical shifts in the economy…
43/ …sending manufacturing jobs overseas, the impact of violence connected to the illicit drug trade, tax policies & fed/state funding diverted to bldg new suburban infrastructure (H2O, sewer, highway, schools) leaving less for reinvestment/maintenance in decaying cities, and…
44/ …the loss of local tax base bc of white *and* black-middle class flight, the Reagan Admin was pursuing "New Federalism" thru which the federal government dramatically reduced fiscal support for city govt & spending on programs that targeted city dwellers.
45/ In 1977, federal aid accounted for 17.5 percent of local government revenues in cities; by 1990, that share had dropped to a mere 5.0 percent.
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/20050823_BudgetingBasics.pdf
Having emerged from the crack epidemic and finally in a position to invest in improvements to the City…
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/20050823_BudgetingBasics.pdf
Having emerged from the crack epidemic and finally in a position to invest in improvements to the City…
46/ …school system, that is showing improvement, Baltimore is hindered by a nearly impossible conundrum that is missed in this otherwise fairly comprehensive piece by @OsitaNwanevu https://newrepublic.com/article/159106/democrats-trump-urban-policy-kimberly-klacik
47/ Baltimore has been unable to expand its borders since 1948 at 81 sq mi, it is one of the smallest major cities in the US by area and its one of a few independent cities in the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_area
48/ It's not that City leaders have been ambivalent about addressing the problems Black communities face, (note, there is no anecdotal evidence to support the assertion), it's that as individuals in those communities gain new skills and better jobs, they are then empowered to…
49/ …move a few miles away & live in one of the surrounding counties with lower taxes and where schools are perceived as better. An April 2020 @abellfoundation report quantified the trend noting significant black out-migration from the City.
50/ It identified the City's conundrum, individual families can and do benefit from investments in training/skills by being able to leave their n'hoods to the suburbs, but the n'hoods they leave behind, and the City more broadly, do not benefit. https://www.abell.org/publications/drilling-down-baltimores-neighborhoods
51/ If Balt City were allowed to expand its area like most cities there wouldn't be a close arbitrary boundary for ppl to move across. Compare Baltimore's 81 sq. miles w/ Jacksonville, Fl., which has grown over the years to 747 sq. miles & has a pop. of 909k as a result.
52/ If Balt City combined w/ Balt Co., it'd have an area of 679 sq. mi and a pop. of 1.42m (ranked 14th in the US) and would have a poverty rate closer to the nat'l avg. at 14%.
53/ There's only so much the City leaders can do to address generational poverty while maintaining services at a level to retain the City's tax base.
If it were part of a county-wide gov't, it could draw on the county's resources to help diffuse existing poverty.
If it were part of a county-wide gov't, it could draw on the county's resources to help diffuse existing poverty.
54/ It'd have more representation in the MD General Assembly and have greater ability to have more state resources allocated its way. But of course that's a political pipe dream...
So in the meantime, everyone will need to pitch in to the best of their ability.
So in the meantime, everyone will need to pitch in to the best of their ability.
55/ My firm is taking steps to promote economic development and job creation in disadvantaged n'hoods and I hope it inspires others in a position to help to give thought about what they can do https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0828-black-businesses-law-firm-20200827-7pp7kcjhmnb7lh5kvw4a6giej4-story.html
