In the wake of Freddie Gray’s murder by police, national attention has been focused on Baltimore. Residents of Baltimore have come together in unprecedented ways to protest police brutality and organize for longer term change. Police brutality and unjustified arrests have been problems in Baltimore for a long time stemming back to Mayor Martin O’Malley’s program of mass arrests without probable cause. One sixth of the population of Baltimore was arrested in one year, tens of thousands of which were youth who were held overnight and released in the morning without charges. But the injustice in Baltimore runs deeper. Wealth inequality has been rising in Baltimore, MD so that some neighborhoods look like war zones with rows of abandoned houses and dilapidated structures while others are dotted with large mansions and their sophisticated gardens. There is a twenty year difference in life expectancy between neighborhoods within the city. Delegate Jill Carter, a practicing attorney in Baltimore, and Dayvon Love of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle will speak about the history of police violence and poverty in Baltimore and what is being done to bring justice to the people.
Listen here:
Baltimore’s Struggle for Economic, Racial and Social Justice with Jill P. Carter and Dayvon Love by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud
Relevant articles and websites:
Maryland Delegate: Martin O’Malley ‘Savagely Wrong’ on Crime by Fault Lines
The Brutality of Police Culture in Baltimore by Conor Friedersdorf
Only We Can Save Ourselves – In Response to the Death of Freddie Gray by Dayvon Love
New Jail, Same Old Story: Selling Out Baltimore’s Grassroots by Dayvon Love
Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle
Guests:
Jill P. Carter is the daughter of the late Walter P. Carter, who was a civil rights activist and leader in the desegregation movement in Maryland in the 1950s and 1960s. Her mother, Zerita Joy Carter, is a retired public school educator. Carter attended Western High School in Baltimore. Carter received her B.A. in English from Loyola College in Maryland in 1988, and her J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 1992.
Prior to law school, Carter was a journalist for Afro American Newspapers. She was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1993. She has worked as a staff attorney for The Legal Aid Bureau, the Office of the Public Defender, and the Office of the City Solicitor. She is a member of Monumental City Bar Association, the Maryland Trial Lawyers’ Association and a founding member of the Black Lawyers Group and founder and president of the Walter P. Carter Foundation. She was the Executive Director of the Maryland Minority Business Association in 2002, chair of the Baltimore Branch NAACP Legal Redress Committee, and was listed in Maryland’s Top 100 Women in the Daily Record in 2006. In 2009,she was the honored as an “Exceptional Woman in Business and Government”, at the first annual “Pretty in Pinstripes” Women’s History Month celebration.
Carter was elected to the Maryland legislature after defeating four incumbents in the Democratic primary that September. She was the third African-American female attorney elected to the Maryland Legislature. The first was Lena K. Lee who served from 1967–1982; the second, Lisa Gladden, served from 1998–2002; and, finally, Jill Carter (2003–present).
During her first term from 2003–2006, she was the only African-American female attorney serving in the Maryland House of Delegates. She is currently a member of the House Judiciary Committee and chair of the Estates and Trusts Subcommittee, the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland, and the Women Legislators of Maryland. Carter voted against legalizing slot machines in Maryland in 2005. Prior to her re-election in 2006, she became a vocal critic of then mayor (now Governor Martin O’Malley‘s “failed policing policies”. She posited that the so-labeled, zero tolerance, arrest strategy failed to cause significant reduction in a soaring crime rate in Baltimore City, but, rather, pressured police officers to make tens of thousands of arrests that did not produce criminal charges. She has oft been referred to as a lone voice in the wilderness for her challenges to established politicians on matters of adequate housing for the poor, lead poisoning of children, to adequately fund public education, both in the legislature, and in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City., and, in 2007, calling for a special session of the legislature to deal with the BGE utility rate increase.
In 2008, Carter was the only member of Baltimore City’s state delegation to receive a grade of “Outstanding” from the local NAACP.
Dayvon Love is the Research Director of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle. Dayvon was a policy debater for the Towson University debate team. In 2008, he Deven Cooper won the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) National Championship – the first time in history that an all black team won the tournament. He has been an active participant in the Baltimore Algebra Project and Baltimore CAN. He has given numerous speeches and led workshops around Baltimore to give insight into the plight of the masses of Baltimore citizens.