Baltimore One Year After the Death of Freddie Gray

Today marks one year since Freddie Gray’s death and, like many Baltimoreans, it is prompting me to reflect on the past year and where our city and our state are headed.

In some ways, we have made a lot of progress over the past 12 months. The legislature and governor worked together to pass significant criminal justice reform. The state is poised to send $300 million to Baltimore to support redevelopment activity, summer and after-school enrichment programs, and incentives to encourage businesses and institutions to locate in certain neighborhoods. Civilians will now have a role in policy accountability proceedings.

However, we’ve also spun our wheels on some important issues. The loss of the Red Line means that Sandtown-Winchester and other impoverished communities continue to lack good transit connections to jobs. The legislature failed to expand the state Earned Income Tax Credit to help young people working in low-wage jobs make ends meet. Baltimore’s police department remains under Department of Justice investigation for discriminatory policing. People living in portions of West Baltimore still have life spans two decades shorter than those in more affluent Roland Park. Freddie Gray’s neighbors are still waiting for jobs, healthcare, and a way to turn their hard work into success.

The circumstances of Freddie Gray’s life and death were tragic. Sadly, they were also not unique. We must continually remind ourselves of the thousands of Marylanders just like him—from Ocean City to Deep Creek Lake—whose names we don’t know but whose circumstances create just as damning a reflection on our society. Awareness of that reality is central to MDCEP’s mission, as is our relentless drive to improve the lives of every Freddie Gray in Maryland—our friends, our family members, our neighbors. Ourselves.