BALTIMORE, MARYLAND — On April 26 of last year, Baltimore residents channeled their anger over the police killing of 25-year-old Freddie Gray into demonstrations. Peaceful protesters marched across Baltimore, while others smashed car windows and vandalized buildings.
On April 26 of this year, Baltimore residents are channeling that anger at the ballot box.
Over the last year, Gray’s death and the subsequent protests in Baltimore have become a central component in the national conversation about police violence. The city has suffered from a heightened crime rate, and residents say they are ready for a change of leadership to help recover its employment rates, improve its housing and education systems, and fix the broken relationship between law enforcement and the community.
“There’s opportunity for six to ten new council members, there’s opportunity for a new mayor, there’s an opportunity to really get some fresh ideas and some real change in Baltimore,” Marques Dent, who is running for a seat on the city council, told ThinkProgress. “That is indicative of what happened a year ago. People were tired, people were frustrated, and people were at a point of turning to other means to express themselves.”
“A lot of that was put on front page news for the world to see, and that’s not what Baltimore is about,” he continued. “We’re much more than that. We have to put the ‘charm’ back in Charm City, so to speak.”
The crowded mayoral race will give voters that opportunity, as will the close Senate race and presidential primary.
Change was forefront on voters’ minds at the polling place closest to Gray’s home on Tuesday. On the quiet sidewalk outside, several people sat in lawn chairs handing out fliers for different mayoral and city council candidates. Across the street, children played on baseball field just blocks from Gilmor Homes, the housing project where Gray lived in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood.
Wactor Pierce, a 56-year-old Sandtown resident, handed out information about mayoral candidate Sheila Dixon. Dixon served as Baltimore mayor from 2007 to 2010 and is running to return to the office she lost amidst an embezzlement scandal.
“It represents a chance of a new start,” Pierce said about the election. “Her slogan is ‘Reclaim, Revive, and Rebuild Baltimore.’ I believe that’s exactly what needs to happen. This will be a good starting point — getting somebody back into office that we feel comfortable with, and I still trust her.”
Pierce noted the irony of wanting a “new start” with somebody who has already held the office. “In a way she is a new face, considering the fact that she’s been out of office now for a few terms,” he said. “I think she will bring a sense of newness to this district here and Baltimore City as a whole.”
Cory McCray, a Democratic member of the Maryland House of Delegates, spent Tuesday campaigning on behalf of a city council candidate at a northeast Baltimore polling place. He told ThinkProgress that getting new, diverse people into government will be a first step in healing the city. “We need to have good leadership,” he said.
I always said to myself, ‘That would never happen here.’
Baltimore residents have criticized the current mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, for her handing of the protests following Gray’s death. Rawlings-Blake decided not to seek reelection last December, and in the months since, roughly a dozen candidates threw their names into the ring.
“With the election coming, at least we can have a mayor who knows exactly what needs to be done and what actions to take if a riot ever comes again,” Baltimore resident Thomas Dargan told ThinkProgress. As he spoke, he stood directly across the street from the rebuilt CVS that was burned and looted last year at the height of the protests.
“Growing up, I looked at the old riots from ’68 and stuff like that,” he said. “I always said to myself, ‘That would never happen here.’ When it did happen, one of the most unfortunate things was that the people in the community didn’t realize they were only destroying the things that were put here in the communities. Hopefully, with everybody working together now, maybe we can actually get people working in a more positive way.”
While Dixon would represent a return to pre-Freddie Gray leadership, others candidates, like Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson, would mean a fresh face in the mayor’s office. Going into Election Day, State Senator Catherine Pugh was leading in the polls.
“I know that everything right now is about the politics,” Miltonia Johnson, who lives a few blocks from the Baltimore corner that became the epicenter of the protests last year, told ThinkProgress. “We need a change. And for me, I’m looking for someone who will stay in touch, and not just when it’s time to vote.”
Johnson said she was supporting Pugh because she has seen her directly involved in the community. And though the protesters have moved on from her neighborhood, she said she still sees the problems that caused last year’s anger and uprising every day.
“Unfortunately I still see the same scenarios within my community — drug dealers on the corner selling drugs, people going up and down the streets disregarding our children,” she said. “I really don’t see that much of a change. My people are still killing each other.”
The highly-contested local race has divided the community, but some have remained focused on ensuring that as many people vote as possible. Last week, Elder C.W. Harris, a community activist and religious leader, sat on the top of a building overlooking Pennsylvania Triangle Park until at least 500 people in his neighborhood had cast a ballot in the Baltimore mayoral primary election.
“I told them I would sacrifice myself,” he told the Atlantic about the importance of getting people from the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood out to vote. “Maybe I can wake up our community to concern themselves in a peaceful, nonviolent way of protesting, and that’s through voting.”