After days of peaceful protests, following the breaking news that started roughly a little
after three o'clock this afternoon, violence that erupted in the section of northwest Baltimore.
The chaos that erupted on that afternoon in that city had been building for days over
the death of a man named Freddie Gray.
It does feel like a crisis there.
You're shaking your head now.
The crisis was before everybody saw it.
Baltimore has been perpetually in crisis.
The task ahead is aimed at letting the whites of Baltimore and Maryland know the Negro
is tired of waiting and that things will be uncomfortable until something is done about
issues like voter registration, welfare, housing and urban renewal.
There are areas in East Baltimore in which 98 percent of the housing or more is considered
deficient.
The obvious of the city has neglected its responsibility and that there is a need for
some work to be done in this area.
Well, I think they're entitled their opinion just as well as I'm entitled mine and the
people of Baltimore City entitled their opinion.
It's inevitable that the civil rights revolution had to get to this point.
If it is going to succeed, thus far it has been a revolution of the powerless.
We have been in a sense petitioning and asking, now we want to gain the power so that we can
demand or if we do not succeed in our demands, we can toss the bums out.
And all these things are now major problems.
They were heard.
No one went out immediately and didn't change any institutions or change anything around.
But they were heard and they're going to have to come.
These changes will have to come.
Are you still optimistic as you stated before that there will be no trouble in Baltimore
this summer?
Yes.
I'm optimistic on that.
I think that, again, that there's so much work to be done that people are actually interested
in solving these problems.
I think they're going to be so busy working on them there's not going to be a whole lot
of time or reason for any outbreak of violence.
It's going to require a lot of participation from all segments of society if we're going
to make some changes so that we can get rid of some of these evils.
From the White House, speaking on the subject of civil rights, President of the United States.
Fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city.
Regress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades and protests which create tensions
and threaten violence and threaten lives.
We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and a people.
It cannot be met by repressive police action.
It cannot be left to increase demonstrations in the streets.
It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk.
It is a time to act in the Congress, in your state and local legislative body and above
all in all of our daily lives.
When Freddie Gray died in police custody, that same anger, this time visited to a different
generation, took root again.
Not because he was like Dr. King, a civil rights leader and a great orator, but because
people thought that there was no justice and therefore there should be no peace.
