As hundreds of National Guard troops and police officers tried to restore calm to Baltimore in the riotous days that followed the April 4, 1968, assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lenny Moore and John Mackey decided to make sandwiches. Bologna sandwiches to be exact. Hundreds of them. And they weren?t for any picnic.
They were for the estimated 2,500 desperate detainees at the Civic Center (now the 1st Mariner Arena), most of whom were being held by police after unknowingly breaking curfew. No bathroom breaks. No food. No one to turn to. And that?s when the two Baltimore Colt Hall of Famers took the field ? unannounced, but with a feeling that something had to be done before a really bad situation became much, much worse.
“We couldn?t let it alone,” said Moore. “All hell was about to break loose in there. Most of those people hadn?t eaten in 24 hours.”
So Moore contacted the office of Mayor Tommy D?Alesandro III in hopes of finding a way of defusing the escalating situation. He eventually worked things out with Dan Zaccagnini, the mayor?s manpower coordinator. Moore said his status as a Colt helped him calm down many of the detainees.
“People listened to us because of who we were,” Moore said. “They all felt we would be able to help [them].”
With a plan in place, Moore, now 74, and Mackey, now 66 and struggling with frontotemporal dementia, called area businesses, and soon there were deliveries of donated lunch meat, cheese, bread and milk to feed those at the Civic Center. And ? thanks to Zaccagnini, Moore and Mackey ? police allowed everyone to use the restrooms.
Zaccagnini, now 75, said that without Moore and Mackey?s help, the riots could have been even deadlier and more destructive. The mood in the Civic Center before the Colts arrived was boiling over. In all, the riots caused six deaths, 700 injuries and $10 million in property damage.
“Lenny Moore and John Mackey were respected by everyone in the city,” Zaccagnini said. “They understood their responsibilities as icons in the community. People listened to them much easier than they would have to me or any police officer. I don?t know what would have happened if they hadn?t been there.”
Once calm was restored, Moore knew there was a lot of work ahead to rebuild the city and make sure a whole generation of young people didn?t get lost in the process. Along with Mackey, he worked with the city to create a summer program to give at-risk youths a venue where they could participate in activities.
“Nothing like those riots had ever happened in the city before,” said Moore, who works for the state Department of Juvenile Services. “We wanted to try to make something positive out of it. Out of that horrible situation came agreat program. It just shows you what can be done when people work together.”
As a result, the city ran a program over the next several summers that bused thousands of kids to the Bainbridge Naval Training Center in Cecil County, where they played sports and, most importantly, learned about making the right decisions in life.
“Things happened so fast during the riots, Lenny Moore and John Mackey never got the credit they deserved,” Zaccagnini said.
