Lexington Books Race, Class, Power, and Organizing in East Baltimore: Rebuilding Abandoned Communities in America

This book examines the historical and current practices of rebuilding abandoned and disinvested communities in America. Using a community in East Baltimore as an example, Race, Class, Power, and Organizing in East Baltimore shows how the social structure of race and class segregation of the past contributed in the creation of our present day urban poor and low-income communities of color; and continue to affect the way we rebuild these communities today. Specific to East Baltimore is the presence of a powerful and prestigious medical complex which has directly and indirectly affected the abandonment and rebuilding of East Baltimore. While it has grown in power and land over the past 100 years, the neighborhoods around it have decreased in size and capital, widening the gap between the rich and the poor. The author offers a critical analysis of the relationships between powerful private institutions like the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and government and their intention in rebuilding urban communities by asking the question "How do we determine equity in benefit?" Focusing on a current rebuilding project using eminent domain to displace historical African-American communities, and the acquiring of land for private development, this book details the role of community organizing in challenging these types of non-community participatory rebuilding processes, resulting in the gentrification of urban neighborhoods. The detailed analysis of the community organizing process when families are displaced offers similarly affected communities a tool box for challenging current developers and government in unfair rebuilding practices. The context of these practices highlights the current laws and policies that contribute to continued displacement and disadvantage to poor communities without addressing the rhetoric of the intention of government-subsidized private development. This book examines the effect of such non-participatory and non-transparent rebuilding practices on the health of the people and place. Review This book is a compelling example of community research that is sensitive to the intricate ways in which power is exercised. Focusing on efforts to redevelop East Baltimore, the author examines the complicated intersection of the African American community with the power brokers from city government, Johns Hopkins University, and philanthropic foundations. Activist and physician Gomez does a masterful job of telling the story of a neighborhood in trouble and its confrontation with the various parts of the urban growth machine. Middle East Baltimore becomes the site of a struggle between Johns Hopkins and the community over the expansion of the Johns Hopkins medical complex and the proposed development of a biotech research park by the university. Gomez's focus is on attempts of the East Baltimore community to organize resistance to the "negro removal" planned by Johns Hopkins. The author demonstrates how powerful actors can promote their plans and thwart the efforts of citizens to rebuild their community in a way that works for them. This is a carefully researched account of all the actors in this struggle. In the final chapters, the author demonstrates that other communities have confronted these issues in more humane, transparent, and democratic ways. Summing Up: Highly recommended.--CHOICE Avidly exposing the present and ongoing consequences of race, economic, and institutional power inequities that still strangle a historically marginalized urban community, Gomez's book is a powerfully sobering reminder of the absolute necessity for residents to organize, sustain their own bases of power, and exert their collective vision for the rebuilding of their communities.--Rhonda Y. Williams, Social Justice Institute at Case Western Reserve University Marisela Gomez has written an extraordinary book about the confrontation between the fragile and distressed Middle East neighborhood of Baltimore and