Skip to content

Baltimore

Own The Hell Out Of It

There’s a point in every crisis; housing, labour, democracy, take your pick – where you realise the system isn’t just broken, it’s working exactly as designed. And usually, that realisation can happen as early as taking your first step on soil that’s already borrowed, bought and broken before you ever arrived. For me, that understanding started in Salford. Not the glossy council-brouchure Salford of waterfront apartments and artisan dog biscuits, but the Salford Walter Greenwood sketched in Love on the Dole. A place where “poverty was an unwelcome lodger in every home”, where whole streets lived under the shadow of the slum clearances and where, by the 1960s, some of the worst housing in Western Europe was still being swept under municipal carpet.

Union Power Wins: Baltimore Library Workers Get Jobs Back

Fourteen part-time librarians at the Baltimore County Public Library received a jarring email on the afternoon of Nov. 12. BCPL leadership’s email informed them that they would no longer have jobs. The mass firing came just ahead of the holiday season and without any advance notice. All 14 are members of the International Association of Machinists Local 4538, which represents the several hundred BCPL workers and the staff of a nearby Apple Store. Several of those fired were particularly active members of their union. One of the fired librarians is an active union steward and member of the Local’s bargaining committee.

Super Predators, Born Criminals, And The Black Misleadership Class

There is nothing more bipartisan in the United States than a racialized crime panic. Neither Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, nor Donald Trump makes a direct reference to Black people in their screeds. But their policies were and are directed at Black people. Which group is arrested more often than any other in this country? Who is most likely to be incarcerated? Whose neighborhoods are over policed? Who do the police kill most often? It is reasonable to say that Black people are the targets of this hate speech which comes from democrats and republicans alike. Even worse, the Black misleadership class gives cover to this incitement of fear and loathing against their people.

Fighting Displacement Before Gentrification Takes A Hold

In cities across the country, revitalization often comes at a cost: longtime residents priced out or forced out of their homes. In West Baltimore, Bree Jones founded Parity Homes to prove that another path is possible. Like many other housing nonprofits, Parity Homes is revitalizing dilapidated housing and selling them at more affordable rates. Unlike similar initiatives, it is doing so in a neighborhood that hasn’t been overrun by abandonment quite yet. Baltimore has seen one of the country’s highest rates of gentrification, but Jones says West Baltimore hasn’t experienced peak gentrification. That makes it easier to proactively keep neighborhoods affordable and protect people local to those neighborhoods from being displaced.

This Baltimore Food Incubator Is A Local Economic Engine

Walking up the stone steps to MFG Toffee & Bark Company a few days ahead of the shop’s grand opening in Baltimore’s Little Italy, chef Sylva Lin inhales the scent of sugar and espresso coming from the kitchen. She’s dropping by to see the fruit of her efforts incubating local food businesses out of Culinary Architecture, the project she launched a decade ago. After a successful career in catering and professional kitchens, Lin’s entrepreneurial spirit was hungry to create a space that would benefit her neighborhood in Baltimore. She didn’t just want to offer interesting foods. She wanted to connect with neighbors, create good-paying jobs and draw foot traffic to support other businesses on the block.

Forensic Failures: 36 Police-Custody Deaths Should Have Been Ruled Homicide

An unprecedented independent audit found that 36 deaths in police custody over a two-decade span in Maryland should have been ruled homicides by the state’s top medical examiner, a stinging rebuke of Maryland‘s past efforts to investigate the deaths of those once held by law enforcement. The yearslong audit, shared exclusively with The Baltimore Banner ahead of Thursday’s release, cited a likely reason behind the massive failure: racial and pro-police bias in the work of the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which had been led for nearly 20 years by Dr. David Fowler. Before the audit, the deaths had been classified as accidents, natural causes or simply undetermined.

Baltimore Is Improving Its Playspaces; Here’s How

In 1950, Baltimore had a population of just under 950,000 people. The 2020 census put the city’s population at just over 585,000. Today, that number continues to drop with estimates of Baltimore’s 2023 population sitting at just over 565,000 people. “There’s been a precipitous drop in population over the last 70 years, which means that a housing stock that was needed for roughly 300,000 more people 70 years ago is no longer needed today,” explains Frank Lance, President & CEO of Baltimore’s Parks & People, a nonprofit that aims to improve Baltimore through green space and education. “As Baltimore City thinks about its future, there’s a great opportunity to create green space where you had asphalt, where you had roads, where you had housing that’s not going to be redeveloped.”

10 Years Ago, Baltimore Cops Killed Freddie Gray

In the 10 years since Baltimore police officers killed Gray, roughly 3,100 people — mainly Black men — have been murdered in Baltimore; more than twice that many have suffered fatal overdoses; one mayor, one state’s attorney and one police commissioner have been convicted on federal charges; more than 15 police officers have been implicated in the Gun Trace Task Force RICO case, where officers conspired to illegally detain and rob Baltimore residents; more than $70 million has been paid out in settlements relating to police misconduct; the Baltimore Police Department’s (BPD) budget has increased by nearly $150 million...

In Maryland, Cracking Down On A Crime Wave That Doesn’t Exist

Here in this deep blue state, a coalition of judges, attorneys, youth advocates, civil liberties and racial justice organizations are trying to persuade Maryland lawmakers to amend Draconian legislation that requires prosecutors to charge children as young as 10 in adult criminal court for a wide range of felony offenses. At issue is Senate Bill 422 , which, if passed by Maryland’s General Assembly in this legislative session, would reduce by nearly two-thirds the 33 criminal offenses for which juveniles in Maryland are automatically charged as adults.

How Common Ground Cafe Workers Won A Union And A Cafe

In December 2022, workers at Common Ground Cafe in Baltimore started to talk about forming a union. They wanted to address issues of pay equity and workplace discrimination, among others. They hoped their boss would be open to working with them to improve the cafe, which had been a mainstay in Baltimore’s Hampden neighborhood for over 20 years. Instead, when the boss found out about their union drive in July 2023, he closed the business with less than 12 hours’ notice. Nik Koski, a Common Ground worker involved in the union campaign, was completely shocked: “We prepare ourselves for the different ways a boss might retaliate, but to actually experience it was something else.”

Baltimore Media Create A False Impression That Youth Are Responsible For A Lot Of Very Dangerous Crime

Some listeners may know the Sentencing Project for their work calling out racial disparities in sentencing associated with crack versus powder cocaine, and mandatory minimums. A recent project involves looking into another factor shaping public understanding and public policy around criminal justice—the news media. In this case, the focus is young people. “The Real Cost of ‘Bad News’: How Misinformation Is Undermining Youth Justice Policy in Baltimore” has just been released. We’re joined now by the report’s author. Richard Mendel is senior research fellow for youth justice at the Sentencing Project. He joins us now by phone from Prague.

In Baltimore, Urban Farming Isn’t Just About Growing Food

Urban farming is often heralded as a practical solution to food deserts, providing fresh produce to communities where unjust urban planning and policy have limited access to nutritious options. But urban farms can also sow seeds that grow far beyond the garden beds. In Baltimore’s Curtis Bay neighborhood, Filbert Street Garden is showing the power of community-led transformation. Once an overgrown lot, it has evolved into a vibrant community hub, thanks to the dedication of Black farmers like Brittany Coverdale, whose passion for racial and environmental justice led her to the garden coordinator role at Filbert Street Garden.

Baltimore Is Setting A National Standard For Diversifying Its Economy

One of the crucial economic lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic is the importance of diversifying local economies, even in America’s largest cities. New York City continues to struggle with an economy too heavily reliant on tourists and commuters; Las Vegas saw its entertainment industry shut down when out-of-state visitors stopped traveling; vacant storefronts are prominently visible in major business districts and on main streets nationwide. Diversifying often implies attracting new industries by luring them from elsewhere – often a zero-sum game, if the industries are simply shifting locations within the United States.

The Baristas Who Took Over Their Café

In July 2023, early morning visitors to Baltimore’s Common Ground coffee shop found a sign taped to the door⁠. With a thank you to the Hampden community that had sustained it for 25 years, owner Michael Krupp announced the shop would be ceasing operations ​“effective immediately.” Common Ground employees released a statement saying they had only been notified themselves the previous afternoon and, notably, had been a few months into forming a union. According to Common Ground barista Nic Koski, the effort was sparked by ​“general workplace concerns in terms of people wanting more fair, equitable wages, especially between in front of house and back of house, and better treatment — wanting to look into health care and benefits.”

Baltimore Lawsuit Alleges Shale Investments Fueled Price Fixing Scheme

The city of Baltimore filed a class action lawsuit on Saturday, alleging that major U.S. shale drillers colluded to fix oil prices, the latest in a series of lawsuits filed this year claiming that U.S. oil producers conspired with each other and with OPEC to drive oil prices up. The new lawsuit, filed by the mayor of Baltimore and its city council, is notable in part because it alleges Wall Street investment firms played a role by pressuring shale drillers to coordinate their output to prevent fueling price wars with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other oil producers abroad. Wall Street companies were among the largest investors in multiple competing shale producers at the same time — and pushed them all to engage in “capital discipline,” the lawsuit alleges.
assetto corsa mods

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.