Following news accounts of Gov. Larry Hogan’s memoir and his critical view of Baltimore leadership during the 2015 uprising, former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake responded in a Baltimore Sun op-ed, saying the governor “devalues the Black community” through his words and actions.
While Hogan paints “himself as a different politician,” the governor “has brought little more beyond criticism and disdain” since calling in the National Guard to quell the unrest following Freddie Gray’s funeral, Rawlings-Blake writes.
Hogan’s memoir, “Still Standing: Surviving Cancer, Riots, and the Toxic Politics that Divide America,” is due out July 28.
During the ongoing protest movement following the death of George Floyd, political leaders have to undo past wrongs to show Black lives really do matter, Rawlings-Blake argues.
“Unfortunately, as long as Governor Hogan is ‘still standing,’ the Black community will languish at his feet,” she writes.
The former mayor did not refute Hogan’s recollection of an exchange that took place five years ago.
According to The Sun, which reviewed excerpts from the memoir last week, Hogan recalls how he could not reach Rawlings-Blake on April 27, the day of Gray’s funeral, as police and protesters clashed outside Mondawmin Mall. (The transit hub there was shut down, leaving many young people stranded, and police arrived at the scene in riot gear.)
Tensions continued to escalate, with incidents of arson and looting reported across parts of the city.
Hogan asked Keiffer Mitchell, a former Democratic state delegate in the city, to call the police commissioner to find her.
Within 10 minutes she called and agreed to Hogan’s emergency order allowing the Maryland National Guard to come in.
Hogan recalled the mayor saying, “Governor, since you have a gun at my head and are going to do it anyway, I guess I’ll ask you to come in.”
The governor includes sharp criticism of Rawlings-Blake in his book, writing she was “paralyzed with fear and indecision,” “making poor decisions” and “missing in action when her city was desperate and needed her most.”
Hogan also attacked Rawlings-Blake’s statement after protesters clashed with police and fans outside Oriole Park at Camden Yards on April 25. Rawlings-Blake later said, “We also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that.”
“In other words,” Hogan writes, “unless the gang members and the out-of-town agitators injured or killed someone, the mayor was going to let them destroy property and cause other kinds of mayhem.”
The governor also lobs criticism at former President Barack Obama and Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby in his account of the uprising.
In her op-ed, Rawlings-Blake pushes back on the attacks against Mosby, Obama and herself, and says Hogan should have given more credit to Black leaders such as the late Congressman Elijah Cummings, former Baltimore NAACP President Tessa Hill, Del. Nick Mosby and Rev. Jamal Bryant, who all helped bring calm.
She calls Hogan’s description of Gray as a “Crips gang-connected street drug dealer” a “Willie Horton-like assertion that insinuates his death was not worth outrage”–a reference to a 1988 political ad from George H.W. Bush that has a legacy for playing on racist fears.
The Sun later fact-checked parts of Hogan’s book and said there’s no public evidence linking Gray to the Crips, and Hogan doesn’t offer any to support his claim.
On policy, Rawlings-Blake contends Hogan’s canceling of the proposed east-west Red Line light rail just months after the uprising, and his more recent vetos of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future and a bi-partisan bill to provide more funding to the state’s HBCUs, are examples of why racial disparities persist in the state.
Those disparities are reflected in the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, she says.
“Black people account for 31 percent of Maryland’s population but around 41 percent of confirmed COVID-19 fatalities. Governor Hogan hasn’t done nearly enough to address the disparities and alleviate the harm, and even publicly criticized Baltimore Mayor Bernard ‘Jack’ Young’s restrained opening.”
sORRY i LIVED THROUGH IT BOTH A S A RESIDENT AND AS EMPLOYEE WORKING DOWNTOWN BALTIMRE ANS SRB AND MS MOSBY ONLY SHOWED UPED FOR TEH GLAMOR SHOT AND DID NOTHING TO QUELL THE UNREST. E
Hogan is the one politician who only showed up for a photoshoot in west Baltimore in the Sandtown Winchester area and has done nothing to improve the area after the riots when FreddyGray was murdered. The number of death in the Baltimore area has increased due to Police not doing their jobs after Mosley brought them to court and a mandated was put in place to make them accountable for their action. The police executed/ killed Sean Suiter the police officer who was going to testify against other officers and Hogan and done nothing to help with that investigation. The system is rigged against Blacks in general and unless we vote out all the corrupt and racist politicians things will not change for Black people in Baltimore.
Wow! I agree our politicians should Be Held accountable, we the people who place those politicians in office should be held accountable also, once He/She the politician show their true colors, vote them out of office. It’s not just Black People that are being unfairly/or miss treated it is people of color in general, Native Americans and Hispanic people Count also. Would his killer or killers have been apprehended by now if He were not black? “Detective Sean Suiter” what we was shown/the public, it was just crazy, I mean what do they want us to believe? The police held that neighborhood hostage for a week or more. And then said he committed suicide, who goes to work to kill themself? The governor who never use public transportation in Baltimore, changed all the bus routes, it’s not Better Sir! ???????????????????????? I Pray for them All