Educational Media Reviews Online

"My hope is that stories of some of the people who are helping to build Baltimore's future will help audiences understand all that is at stake, deepening their empathy for those they think they already know and, more challenging still, developing empathy for those they did not previously understand."
—Sabrina Bouarour

Winner of the Ocean City Film Festival for Best Feature Film, this well-balanced film from Sabrina Bouarour is a must-see documentary. It is an excellent resource to include in curriculums to highlight the Black Lives Matter Movement. The film focuses on the social, economic and political unrest/history of Baltimore, MD, and how decades of oppression lead to the riots and social protests stemming from the death of Freddie Gray in April 2015. According to an ABC news article “From Eric Garner to George Floyd, 12 Black Lives Lost in Police Encounters that Stoked Mass Protest,” (abc.news.go.com), Gray, 25, was taken into police custody in Baltimore on April 12, 2015, for having a knife. Handcuffed and transported in a police van to the stationhouse [with what onlookers describes as Gray having a broken leg], he sustained a spinal injury and went into a coma. Gray later died in a hospital five days later.

According to government statistics, the unrecorded and inaccurate statistics makes it hard to determine the number of Black Americans killed at the hands of police, but it is estimated that between 2013-2019, Blacks were killed at three times the rate as White Americans. Unfortunately, these heinous acts are committed each day, eye-witnessed by local citizens who are able to at once capture negligent acts and globally share its contents.

This documentary traces the origins of Baltimore’s history from the late 19th century—segregation, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement—to the present. It includes historical documentation in support of forced political policies which includes the separation and implementation of “white and black blocks,” redlining its African American citizens into congested low-income and poor housing areas thus making it hard to secure bank loans, the denial to access quality education and health care, and the control of its Black populations by installing street cameras on nearly every corner in predominate BIPOC communities. However, the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) are resistant to arrest or survey its white citizens and document crimes committed in white neighborhoods. A Department of Justice report provides a scathing and eye-opening account about BPD as being one of the most corrupt police systems in the United States. The television series, “The Wire,” is most noted for its portrayal, albeit fictional account, of the BPD.

The film gathers enough research to set the stage as to why, after numerous decades of systemic oppression, citizens take to the streets to protest the murder of Freddie Gray. His murder follows a long list of African Americans being murdered at the hands of law enforcement. However, in spite of the tragedy, African Americans look for ways to rebuild their city and preserve their culture via the arts and self-sufficient agricultural means. The chief of police promises to implement greater training programs for its BPD, many of whom do not live in Baltimore, nor do they have a relationship with the local citizens. A lot remains to be seen in how Baltimore citizens rebuild their community, forge a more meaningful relationship with BPD, and look for ways to build a better tomorrow.

Along with archival footage and images spanning more than a century, the film includes numerous talking heads such as Kevin Moore (friend, who recorded the beating of Freddie Gray), William H. ”Billy” Murphy, Jr. (Freddie Gray family attorney), Matthew Crenson (John Hopkins University), Kimberly R Moffitt (UMBC, Baltimore County), Kevin Davis (commissioner, Chief of BPD), and Captain Jarron Jackson( BPD) among others.

I highly recommend this film for African American and Law Enforcement studies.

Awards:
Ocean City Film Festival, Best Feature Film

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