Equal opportunity for all. It?s the dream Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed and worked tirelessly to make happen.
If he were alive today and walking through Baltimore, a host of contradictions would confront him. He?d see his dream made manifest: a black woman as mayor, another serving as president of City Council, another as comptroller and still another as state?s attorney.
And he could also speak with men and women like Renwick and Stacey Bass, a black couple who spent seven years of their lives renovating an indoor mall in the Station North Arts District in Baltimore City because they had a vision of a thriving community. “Entrepreneurs need a place to get started, they have to wear a lot of hats, and I thought this could help,” Renwick Bass told The Examiner in November.
But he could also turn on HBO?s “The Wire” and see a thriving subculture of gangs and violence and drugs and walk through the real thing: devastated block after block of once vibrant local communities.
He could read about black teenagers attacking a white woman and her boyfriend on a city bus. And he could visit Maryland prisons, where many of the 9,000 inmates who return to Baltimore City each year dropped out of school.
So what would King think?
We doubt he would think we had arrived at the promised land ? yet. Not with the evidence surrounding him.
But we know he would not give up. And we know he would not find Baltimore?s problems hopeless.
He made that clear from a jail cell in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963: “I have no despair about the future. … We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.”
So on this day of remembrance, let us not despair about our state and city?s problems. Let us focus on giving the most people the most opportunity.
Mayor Sheila Dixon and the members of the Baltimore City Council can start by cutting the city?s property taxes in half, as recommended by the commission studying the issue for her. They know it is the prime issue thwarting growth in the city and a civil rights issue for thousands who cannot afford to buy a home because of taxes twice as high as those in surrounding communities. We know and King would see that the region and the state?s success hinges on Baltimore City?s success, so waiting to release this burden injures all.
Martin Luther King was impatient to right wrongs and excoriated those moderates who sought order more than justice. So should we and those we elect to represent us be impatient to honor his memory ? and the dream.
