History Professor: For Baltimore, 2015 Does Not Have to Repeat 1968
April 30, 2015
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
In an opinion piece for Time magazine, Elizabeth Nix, assistant professor in the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences, says that the violence and destruction that devastated Baltimore during the 1968 riots do not have to lead to a repeat of the bitterness and abandonment that occurred in the years that followed. This time, she says, the city can take a different approach.
"The similarities can stop. Knowledge of the aftermath of 1968 can help prevent its repetition," Nix writes. "In the early 1970s law and order policing reinforced divisions around race, class, and geography in an attempt to lock up the problems instead of addressing them. We can learn from those mistakes. On Tuesday morning the NAACP announced that they would open a satellite office in Sandtown-Winchester, Freddie Gray's neighborhood, to provide counsel to residents on a host of legal issues, including police misconduct. An external oversight board to monitor reports of police violence would serve as a powerful partner in this effort. Out on the streets on Tuesday morning, Baltimoreans worked together to clean up the debris from the night. I hope that as we work we will find a chance to tell each other our stories, and that this time we will listen."
Read the article.
Learn more about Prof. Nix.
Check out UB's examination of the events of 1968, entitled Baltimore '68: Riots and Rebirth.