The anguish and tension that erupted into violence in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.?s assassination still simmers in Baltimore forty years later, faith leaders said Friday.
“The seeds are there [for similar violence]. Walking around Baltimore City, you see lots of reasons why people are so overwhelmed,” said Father John Harfmann, who was associate pastor of St. Peter Claver Church in West Baltimore at the time of the 1968 riots.
Rampant poverty, under-performing schools and drug addiction weigh heavily on many of Baltimore?s residents.
And although the city may be grappling with these problems, the common focus and need that brought people together in the wake of the riots should draw communities together again today, Harfmann said.
“This is a great opportunity to revisit the things that made us strong and made us work together,” said Harfmann, who sat with other religious leaders on a panel at the University of Baltimore?s conference, “Baltimore ?68: Riots and Rebirth.”
In the years before the riots and during the hours when the city was engulfed in smoke, the faith community was closely connected, working together for a common cause.
“Synagogues and churches came to their noblest during those days,” said the Rev. Marion Bascom, pastor emeritus at Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore.
“Had it not been for the religious community, only God knows what would have happened to the civil rights movement.”
Harfmann remembered joining with other local leaders to sell milk from a Cloverland Dairy refrigerator truck and later selling bread.
“If you called on us, we would do it,” he said.
The Jewish community used to meet regularly with members of the city?s African-American community to discuss issues such as race and poverty, said Rabbi Martin Weiner, who was a 29-year-old associate rabbi at Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore during the riots.
Those kinds of gatherings should be continued today, he said.
Today?s black political leaders, like Mayor Sheila Dixon and presidential hopeful Barack Obama, offer hope for healing the racial wounds, Weiner said.
“As people of faith and as Americans, we have to have a sense of hopefulness,” Weiner said.
