A Love Letter to Community

Millions of people showed up for their communities yesterday. By defending democracy and human rights across nationwide and global No Kings protests, people hopefully took stock in what it means to be a community. And what it actually takes to defend it. In my adopted home of Baltimore, demonstrations were not the only community events taking place yesterday.

At the screening of “The Beat Goes On: The Story of Baltimore Beat” documentary, community members gathered at one of my favorite nonprofits, Wide Angle Youth Media, to discuss the 2015 Freddie Gray Uprising’s lasting impact on Baltimore.

More than ten years ago, witnesses of Freddie Gray’s murder in the historic Black neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester joined Black residents citywide to make painfully visible the systemic racism and resulting deaths endured for generations.

“People live or die by narratives,” Lisa Snowden, Baltimore Beat CEO and cofounder, explains in her reflection on the mainstream media’s slanted coverage of the “riots” manifesting as smashed car windshields and burned storefronts. The chaos was only part of the story.

But streets full of peaceful marches and vigils and mutual aid do not make national headlines.

Through interviews with local artists and activists, plus journalists from the shuttered Baltimore City Paper and revived Baltimore Beat, the 6pm Productions team (director David Elliot, producer Dion Smith, and producer and recording artist Eze Jackson) show how much work we still have to do as a city to not only repair generational harm, but also to strengthen social ties.  

As featured filmmaker, Malaika Aminata Clements, puts it in the documentary, true community building needs to be about the “sustained energy of caring about a city.”

Large-scale protests are important for building awareness and activating advocates, but it is the routine, and albeit emotional, labor of protecting your fellow neighbors that keeps people in the fight for the long-term.

Living out abstract ideals of democracy and shared humanity means acknowledging what, or who, builds community.

It is not the urban planners or elected officials or even public servants.

But rather the neighbors down the block who wave to you from their stoops, help shovel snow from alleyways, come by to check on you when your front door is ajar, and step out of the relative safety of their homes to document unconstitutional arrests.

In the panel discussion, one audience member described the film as “a love letter to Baltimore.”

While the fight against police brutality and for institutional accountability has long been and will continue to be a part of the birthplace of redlining’s story, Baltimoreans understand that actions have to speak louder than words.

Loving your community means protecting it when no one else will.