Baltimore Revisited: Stories of Inequality and Resistance in a U.S. City

by P. Nicole King (Editor), Kate Drabinski (Editor), Joshua Clark Davis (Editor), Lawrence Brown (Contribution by), Daniel L. Buccino (Contribution by)

Overview

Nicknamed both “Mobtown” and “Charm City” and located on the border of the North and South, Baltimore is a city of contradictions. From media depictions in The Wire to the real-life trial of police officers for the murder of Freddie Gray, Baltimore has become a quintessential example of a struggling American city. Yet the truth about Baltimore is far more complicated—and more fascinating.
 
To help untangle these apparent paradoxes, the editors of Baltimore Revisited have assembled a collection of over thirty experts from inside and outside academia. Together, they reveal that Baltimore has been ground zero for a slew of neoliberal policies, a place where inequality has increased as corporate interests have eagerly privatized public goods and services to maximize profits. But they also uncover how community members resist and reveal a long tradition of Baltimoreans who have fought for social justice.
 
The essays in this collection take readers on a tour through the city’s diverse neighborhoods, from the Lumbee Indian community in East Baltimore to the crusade for environmental justice in South Baltimore. Baltimore Revisited examines the city’s past, reflects upon the city’s present, and envisions the city’s future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813594019
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	08/09/2019
Edition description:	None
Pages:	378
Sales rank:	1,151,172
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

P. NICOLE KING is an associate professor and chair of the department of American studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is the author of Sombreros and Motorcycles in the Newer South: The Politics of Aesthetics in South Carolina’s Tourism Industry.

KATE S. DRABINSKI is a senior lecturer in gender and women’s studies and director of Women Involved in Learning and Leadership, a feminist activist program, both at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
 
JOSHUA CLARK DAVIS is an assistant professor of history at the University of Baltimore. He is the author of From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs.
 
 

Table of Contents

Foreword Linda Shopes xi

Introduction: Why Revisit Baltimore Now? P. Nicole King Joshua Clark Davis Kate Drabinski 1

Part I Place and Power: Roots of (In)Justice in the City 9

1 The City That Eats: Food and Power in Baltimore's Early Public Markets Robert J. Gamble 13

2 "Shove Those Black Clouds Away!": Jim Crow Schools and Jim Crow Neighborhoods in Baltimore before Brown Emily Lieb 24

3 "The Pot": Criminalizing Black Neighborhoods in Jim Crow Baltimore Michael Casiano 37

4 Vacant Houses and Inequality in Baltimore from the Nineteenth Century to Today Eli Pousson 52

5 (snapshot) A Psychology of Place: Race, Violence, and Community in Baltimore Daniel Buccino Teresa Méndez 67

6 (snapshot) Community Health and Baltimore Apartheid: Revisiting Development, Inequality, and Tax Policy Lawrence Brown 73

Part II Histories of Contestation and Activism in a Legacy City 83

7 The Riot Environment: Sanitation, Recreation, and Pacification in the Wake of Baltimore's 1968 Uprising Leif Fredrickson 87

8 "The People's Side of the Road": Movement against Destruction and Organizing across Lines of Race, Class, and Neighborhood Shannon Darrow 103

9 More Than a Store: Activist Businesses in Baltimore Joshua Clark Davis 118

10 (snapshot) "Welfare Isn't a Single Issue": Baltimore's Welfare Rights Movement, 1960s-1980s Amy Zanoni 128

11 The Last Censors: The Life and Slow Death of Maryland's Board of Motion Picture Censors, 1916-1981 Joe Tropea 137

12 (snapshot) "Temple of the Drama": The Five-Year Protest at Ford's Theater, 1947-1952 Jennifer A. Ferretti 152

Part III Voices from Here: Listening to the Past 159

13 "Because They Were Also Downed People": Black-Jewish Relationships in Baltimore during the 1968 Uprising and Beyond Jacob R. Levin 163

14 (snapshot) Korean Communities in Baltimore Aletheia Hyun-Jin Shin 178

15 The Lumbee Community: Revisiting the Reservation of Baltimore's Fells Point Ashley Minner 185

16 Overburdened Bodies and Lands: Industrial Development and Environmental Injustice in South Baltimore Nicole Fabricant 197

17 (snapshot) Finding Closure: The Poets of the Sparrows Point Steel Mill Michelle L. Stefano 210

18 Baltimore's Socialist Feminists-Lessons from Then, Lessons for Now: Community Empowerment and Urban Collectives in the 1970s Elizabeth Morrow Nix April Kalogeropoulos Householder Jodi Kelber-Kaye 216

19 Relentlessly Gay: A Conversation on LGBTQ Stories in Baltimore Kate Drabinski Louise Parker Kelley 226

Part IV Surviving in the Neoliberal City: Redevelopment in Baltimore 239

20 Johns Hopkins University and the History of Developing East Baltimore Marisela B. Gomez 243

21 Image and Infrastructure: Making Baltimore a Tourist City Mary Rizzo 257

22 Skywalk: The Life and Death of Multilevel Urbanism in Downtown Baltimore Fred Scharmen 271

23 (snapshot) Rethinking Gentrification in Baltimore, Sharp Leadenhail Matthew Durington Samuel Gerald Collins 286

24 The Superblock: A Downtown Development Debacle, 2003-2015 P. Nicole King 293

25 (snapshot) Under Armour's Global Headquarters and the Redevelopment of South Baltimore Richard E. Otten 306

Part V Democratizing the Archives 313

26 Social History in the Archives: Baltimore's Enduring Legacy Aiden Faust 315

27 (snapshot) Building a More Inclusive History of Baltimore: Preserving the Baltimore Uprising Denise D. Meringolo 326

Afterword: Weaving Knowledges Shawntay Stocks 335

Acknowledgments 337

Notes on Contributors 341

Index 349

Editorial Reviews

"Baltimore Revisited presents an important and compelling portrait of Baltimore’s past to advocate a more just present and future. Not just a book about Baltimore, this collection can serve as a roadmap for scholars, students, and civic leaders seeking to understand how cities take the shape they do and what can be done to challenge those patterns when they deny justice to citizens."

 

associate professor of history, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis - Rebecca K. Shrum

"Trump's Dehumanizing Attacks on Baltimore Are Hiding an Awful Truth--And He Knows It," op-ed by Nicole King
https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-dehumanizing-attacks-baltimore-are-hiding-awful-truth-he-knows-it-opinion-1452035

Newsweek

"The Baltimore School represents a school of thought that seeks to radically change how we understand cities and how we redistribute resources within them, by taking space, race, and political economy seriously. In the years to come, this work will be known as one of the central Baltimore School texts, used to help people understand Baltimore and cities like it, for the purpose of making it (and them) more just and humane." 

Associate Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies, Johns Hopkins University - Lester Spence

"[The book] is a fascinating accounts of public markets, vacant housing, highways. [It] stimulates curiosity about Baltimore at a time when friends and foes alike cite the city as the epitome of American urban ills."

Journal of Urban Affairs

"Trump's Dehumanizing Attacks on Baltimore Are Hiding an Awful Truth--And He Knows It," op-ed by Nicole King
https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-dehumanizing-attacks-baltimore-are-hiding-awful-truth-he-knows-it-opinion-1452035

Newsweek