Red Emma’s

RSVP NOW TO JOIN THE ONLINE BROADCASTor watch via YouTube: Baltimore has a long history of grassroots organizing as well as hyper-segregation and police violence. Legal scholar Garrett Power has referred to the racialized geography of Baltimore as an “apartheid city” referencing the kinds of segregation and racism found in South Africa. Baltimore’s hyper-segregated neighborhoods that are over policed and underserved provide the root causes of a divided city with an expanding murder rate, health disparities, and civil unrest. In 2015, Baltimore exploded in anger and rage after officers in the Baltimore Police Department killed Freddie Gray, a 25-year old African American resident of West Baltimore. Gray’s spine was severed while being transported in a police vehicle, part of a longer trajectory of police brutality and violence. The rage of historic disinvestment led to the Baltimore uprisings of 2015. This panel looks at how the history of organizing has changed post-uprising and asks the following questions: What is the landscape of organizing in Baltimore in a post-uprising environment? What are the ways in which grassroots organizers and leaders have come together to advocate for investments in housing, education, and alternative forms of development? What are the things that keep us apart and in competition rather than solidarity? What are strategies for rebuilding and reinvesting in systemically disinvested and red-lined communities? How and in what ways can we learn from one another’s struggles and collaborate rather than compete? What are the ways in which we can build a larger movement for justice in Baltimore and cities like it in the 21st century? How and in what ways is COVID19 exacerbating pre-existing inequalities? How and in what ways will Baltimore City movements respond to the diverse needs of our most disenfranchised citizens? What might post-COVID19 landscape of organizing look like?