You see, African Americans have a seriously profound history in this town, as do many other ethnic groups in Baltimore. There was a time in Baltimore where you had massive amounts of Black businesses, stores, restaurants, clubs, hospitals, banks, funeral homes and other life-sustaining enterprises. Then after the civil rights bill of the 60's, many AA families sold their businesses, vacated their residences because some felt.."the white man's ice was colder." This void within the Black community made the way for guns, drugs and other known degenerative behaviors that seeped into the community. And the rest is history.

Baltimore is a borderline, Mason-Dixon town. Technically a southern town, with some quaint and non-sophisticated northern attributes. A town that sits between the gravitational pull of NYC/NJ, Philly and DC. A city that is trying to find itself in that identity pool of neighboring larger metropolitan cities. A town that speaks so much about history and culture, but do very little preserve its existence.

I remember in a episode of the Sopranos when Tony took AJ to a Newark neighborhood, stopped at church that Tony's grandfather built. He proceeded, with little effort, tell a short story to AJ about some of the early struggles of Italians and how his grandfather worked his ass off to build that church. Like many youngster, he seemed disinterested in what Tony was trying to convey to him. This is, in some sense, is historical context. One out of many that I saw in The Sopranos series. The many references to Black and Italian relationship dynamics within Newark, NJ, whether good, bad or indifferent, it gave the show a little more depth in this regards about people from different warring tribes co-existing (or not exist) in an urban landscape.