The shadow of charm city: Inside America's great racial divide
In a bid to instill civic pride forty years ago, Baltimore was officially named "Charm City". Today, some call Baltimore a war zone - over 300 homicides per year amid 16,000 vacant homes. And the death of an African American man in police custody in 2015 sparked the worst urban riots since the 1960's. IDEAS producer Mary O'Connell takes us inside America's great racial divide.


In a bid to instill civic pride forty years ago, Baltimore was officially named "Charm City". Today, some call Baltimore a war zone - over 300 homicides per year amid 16,000 vacant homes. And the death of an African-American man in police custody in 2015 sparked the worst urban riots since the 1960's. IDEAS producer Mary O'Connell takes us inside America's great racial divide. **This episode was recently awarded a Gold Medal at this year's New York Festivals. It originally aired October 24, 2016.



Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute says Baltimore has become one of America's most segregated cities and it's inequality that is driving police brutality. He says, "there is more inequality between blacks and whites in America today than there was in the 1960's". Black annual income is about 60% of what whites make, and the personal wealth of blacks is 5% compared to that of white America.

Guests in the program:
- J. Wyndal Gordon, Baltimore attorney
- Michael Wood, former Baltimore Police Sgt, public lecturer on police reform, Ph.D candidate
- Wardell Barksdale Jr., retired teacher, counsellor
- Billy Murphy Jr., Baltimore attorney, public lecturer
- Richard Rothstein, research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, fellow of the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
- Dawn Ollivierre, substance abuse counsellor, Baltimore
- Vanessa Williams, program director of The Club (after school program) and The Ark (preschool for homeless children) Baltimore
Related stories:
- The brutality of police culture in Baltimore
- The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs gave birth to a permanent American undercaste
- Looking While Black: When eye contact with police is considered a crime
- The Case for Reparations
- Loaded Dice: Thomas Chatterton Williams
- The Historical Failure of Black Leadership
Reading list:
- Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Spiegal & Grau, 2015, New York
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, The New Press, New York, 2010
- The Substance of Hope:Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress by William Jelani Cobb, Walker Books, New York, 2010
- The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race by Jesmyn Ward, Scribner, 2016
- Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era by Adolph Reed Jr., University of Minnesota Press, 1999


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