Lynnwood Taylor?s memories of the 1968 riots in Baltimore include the smell of smoke from the fires, the sight of the National Guard at Mondawmin Mall and the abrupt ending to his girlfriend?s junior prom at the Civic Center.
His memories don?t, however, include participating in the uprisings.
“Not all of us were rioting,” Taylor, who was 17 and living in Northwest Baltimore at the time, said Friday at the University of Baltimore?s conference on the 1968 riots. “We didn?t all think alike.”
Taylor, who now lives in East Baltimore, attended the conference because the events of April, 1968 “truly had an impact” on his life.
“I had to seek out what being a black man meant to me,” Taylor said. “It made me stop and start asking questions and seeking answers.”
Eunice Anderson was 12 and living in Edmondson Village at the time of the riots, remembering the vandalism that occurred at two Jewish-owned markets near her home.
“We didn?t know the owners very well, but they were part of the neighborhood,” Anderson said. “After that, there were bars on store windows, and the owners got guard dogs. The neighborhood just became so unfriendly.”
Anderson, like Taylor, said there were many blacks who didn?t participate in the looting and arson. Her parents warned her three older brothers not to participate or bring any stolen items home.
“It was scary, watching it unfold on the news,” said Anderson, who still lives in Edmondson Village. “It was really sad, but it was a place in history.”
When she told her husband she wanted to attend the conference, Anderson?s spouse asked, “Why would you want to relive that?”
“It?s important to know what has changed that needs to be explained,” Anderson said. “I want to know more about what was going on politically.”
Taylor and Anderson were among about 200 people who listened to a talk by York College of Pennsylvania professor Peter Levy. Levy outlined the causes and consequences of the riots in Baltimore.
“In the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the United States experienced its greatest wave of social unrest since the Civil War,” Levy said. “The uprisings caused $12 million in damages alone in Baltimore.”
The social unrest in Baltimore included 1,000 fires, 1,200 lootings, 5,000 arrests and six deaths. WYPR?s Fraser Smith, whospoke at the university on Thursday night, said a resistance to discrimination had developed among blacks years before the 1968 riots.
“The riots were directly related to the murder of Dr. King,” Smith said, “but it was also a reaction to ?the way it was.?”
The conference continues today. For more information, visit ubalt.edu/baltimore68.
