“Communities, like individuals, should take stock occasionally of their manners of living, their modes of development, their mental attitudes and their adaptabilities. Only in this way can they determine whether they are benefiting from the lessons of the past. … Only in this way can they safely condition themselves for advancement into the future.”
–Gov. Theodore McKeldin, a former Baltimore City mayor, in 1955 to William Rogers, chairman of the Maryland Commission on Interracial Problems and Relations on release of the commission?s survey of Baltimore City on the topic.
Recommended Stories
Fifty-two years ago McKeldin believed an analysis of racial relationships in Baltimore City would lead to more opportunity for all. His hopes proved futile.
With the mayoral race upon us, now is the time to again measure whether the lessons we and our elected leaders learned from that survey and more than 50 years of experience have boosted opportunity for all residents, about 65 percent of whom are black. That is an increase of about 41 percentage points since 1954 when the survey was conducted. Using the survey as a benchmark, the news is grim across many fronts.
>> In 1954, black families in Baltimore earned 65 percent of what white families earned. According to the most recent U.S. Census data, the median income for black households in the city is half that of white?s.
>> In 1954, black women headed 24 percent of black households in Baltimore, compared to 15 percent of female heads for all family units. Today that figure is more than54 percent, while white women head 21 percent of white households in Baltimore today.
>> In 1954, 9 percent of black heads of households in Baltimore held four-year college degrees, compared to 9.5 percent of all adults. While not a direct comparison, current census figures show the number of blacks 25 and over with bachelor?s degrees in Baltimore City as 7 percent for men and 8 percent for women.
In the city, 21 percent of white women and 22 percent of white men hold four-year college degrees. About the same percentage of white men and women hold graduate degrees, whereas 4 percent of black women and 3 percent of black men hold graduate degrees. This suggests the city is attracting white residents with higher degrees but not black residents with similar credentials.
The evils of segregation shadowed all the 1954 statistics. But why is it that more than 50 years after the survey, and after the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka desegregating schools, are so many black residents in the city worse off?
Does the current crop of nine mayoral candidates, all Democrats except for one, want to be part of that legacy of destruction?
Do they want to keep throwing money at a failed school system or start allowing parents more opportunities to end the generations of educational failure, low-paying jobs and poverty as adults? Do they want to keep switching police commissioners when crime plans don?t work?
Or how about deporting residents, black and white, to the suburbs where property taxes are half as much?
The answer to these and other questions about the future of Maryland?s largest city must be an emphatic no.
Because of Baltimore?s disproportionate economic impact as overwhelmingly the largest city in Maryland, every resident of this state has a vested interest in its future.
If corruption, crime, grime, abysmal schools, extortionate taxes and entrenched debt continue to drive people and jobs out of Baltimore ? and prevent the best and brightest of all races from moving in ? this beautiful city will slide inexorably into a social abyss and pull the whole state down with it.
Candidates for mayor owe We the People detailed explanations of how we shall condition ourselves for advancement into the future.
What specific, radical, vigorous solutions will they bring to these problems?
