Baltimore Uprisings

Baltimore is rising up to protest the police killing of Freddie Gray, the long history of over policing and police brutality, and the severe under-resourcing of Black communities in Baltimore. The city is under occupation, with a heavy presence by the national guard and a curfew imposed by the mayor. The national media attention has been focused on the destruction of property, rather than the violence of police killing black people with little accountability. As one Baltimore organizer put it, the millions of tax dollars paid in settlements to families over the years could be better spent on jobs, housings, and supports to Black communities, if police were not killing and abusing residents.

This page offers resources, updates, and a twitter feed (on the right side of this page) to help you stay updated on what is happening in Baltimore and ways to support the uprisings. We also encourage you to check out similar efforts from our partners and members of Funders for Justice:

ABFE circulated From Ferguson to Baltimore: We Must Continue to Support, including a number of information resources, organizations, and opportunities to support the Baltimore Uprisings.

Resource Generation also circulated a number of resources, and encouraged support through their fundraising effort to support Black-led organizing for Black liberation, Young People Investing in a Future Free of Racism.

Please check back on this page regularly for updates and additional resources.

ORGANIZATIONS

Unjust: How the Broken Criminal Justice System Fails LGBT People

[This report] documents how pervasive stigma and discrimination, biased enforcement of laws, and discriminatory policing strategies mean that LGBT people are disproportionately likely to interact with law enforcement and to have their lives criminalized.

Making Black Lives Matter Initiative Website Launch

The Making Black Lives Matter Initiative site will provide background on Hill-Snowdon’s MBLM Initiative that is focused on supporting Black-led organizing in order to help revitalize and strengthen the institutional and political power of the Black community. The website describes Foundation’s framework for supporting Black communities to develop the power necessary for them to thrive and introduces the Black Social Change Funders Network as a vehicle to help philanthropy better coordinate its efforts to achieve social change in the Black community.

Control, Disruption and Democracy: Philanthropy’s Role in Inclusive Civic Engagement

To overcome the fictions we tell ourselves requires us to acknowledge that the way the criminal justice system operates for Black and brown people, like the way our national security system has operated since 9/11, and the way our immigration system has functioned for virtually all of American history, is to restrict and confine participation in American democracy – to squelch civic engagement in the most literal sense.

Executives’ Alliance Foundation Leaders “Ban the Box”

Leaders from 42 foundations announced today that they have "banned the box" by adopting fair chance hiring policies or ensuring that questions about criminal convictions do not appear on applications for employment with their foundations.

Bryan Stevenson on inequality, mass incarceration and criminalization

Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, explains how inequality and the abuse of power exploit people of color and the poor.

Philanthropy on the Frontlines of Ferguson

Brown’s death at the hands of former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson sparked a national dialogue about racial inequality. It brought home the point that, just as place and poverty are social determinants of health, racial equity is an important indicator of our communities’ health. This dialogue has been a critically important step toward addressing the complex challenges and deep fissures that exist in communities plagued by racial tension and economic instability. But we at Deaconess Foundation strongly believe that in order to overcome these challenges and heal the fissures, the dialogue must be followed by action on a systemic level.

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FUNDERS TAKING ACTION

Key Insights from #BaltimoreUprisings

by Austin Thompson, director of the Youth Engagement Fund at the Democracy Alliance

The Fund for Rebuilding Baltimore, at the Baltimore Community Foundation

In response to recent painful events in our city, the Baltimore Community Foundation has established The Fund for Rebuilding Baltimore. We will work closely with our partners in the community to determine how the dollars contributed to The Fund for Rebuilding Baltimore can best be deployed to repair the physical and emotional damage that has been done and strengthen our community for the future.

Visit their website.

Hill-Snowdon Foundation Statement on the Killing of Freddie Gray

The Hill-Snowdon Foundation wants to extend our deepest condolences and sympathies to the family of Freddie Gray for his senseless and tragic death. Freddie Gray’s death joins the almost weekly incidents of suspicious and disturbing police involved deaths of Black males and females over the last eight months. These incidents are a clarion call for all those who believe in justice to look deeply at the underlying institutional practices and attitudes that inform the history of the disproportionate use of excessive and deadly force by police officers in the Black community.

Read the full statement on the Hill-Snowdon Foundation homepage.

Joint Affinity Groups Statement on the Baltimore Uprising

The events in Baltimore Maryland unfolded right as many grantmakers in the field were engaging in the 2015 conference season. The killing of people of color, predominantly Black people, by police is a recurring concern. This is a not a new problem, just one that is more well known to us all given the presence of cell phone cameras and social media. As in Ferguson, New York, South Carolina and many other regions, funders in Baltimore are now faced with developing rapid response strategies in addition to their ongoing work.

Read the full statement.

Statement by Open Society Institute – Baltimore in Response to the Killing of Freddie Gray

The Board and staff of Open Society Institute-Baltimore are deeply affected by the events in Baltimore over the last several days. We join with millions of individuals in Baltimore and beyond in extending our deepest condolences to the family of Freddie Gray, and we, too, are angry that the life of another young black male was cut short while in the custody of those who are sworn to protect and serve. While we are saddened by the recent destruction, we choose not to lose sight of the issues that precipitated these events or the solutions that are needed to bring about healing, peace and justice in Baltimore.

Read the full statement.