Growing Up Baltimore – “The Legacy of Former Councilman Ken Harris”
Ken Harris
Wallace Beal couldn’t stand it anymore.
(from Beal interview find Ambi to run under)
A trustee at Zion Baptist Church in West Baltimore, he saw the results of teen violence more starkly than most in the city. As part of his church duties, he became a kind of official mourner. He recounted his reaction recently during a game in a basketball league he started seven years ago.
“I got tired of going to funerals for 12 and 13 year olds So we started a league. It was two churches. We had two teams. Now we’re up to 24.”
He’s got eight hundred kids in his program. He wants 10,000 – a tall order, but a measure of the problem he sees in Baltimore. He’s determined to get his players on track in school. His coaches, he said, are in touch with their players outside the gym.
“I’m not aware of any kid in my program who’s not in school. They may get a little behind in their grades but we try to pump them up.”
[Reporter]: “I would think that’s hugely important.”
“It is but the draw of the street is stronger than the draw of basketball.”
Annette Harris and her husband, Ken, then a city councilman, shared Beal’s sense of urgency. She spoke of their concerns in an interview on the sun porch of her comfortable home in Northeast Baltimore.
“Every morning we’d listen to the radio. I said, Wow, the city has a real crisis here. Every day you’re hearing about someone being murdered. And he said it is really out of control. I said it really is.”
Harris acted on his and his wife’s concerns. Getting involved is what he did – long before he was elected to the city council. He was a hyper active member and president of the Leith Walk Elementary School PTA. His concern that truancy was out of control led to the establishment of a daytime curfew for kids who should be in school. He spearheaded changes in eviction procedures which threw kids and their families into the street with their belongings. He was constantly pushing for more police protection in his far-flung northeastern district; and, following up more directly on his concerns about the murder rate, he convened a summit on violence. More than a thousand people came to the War Memorial auditorium in 2002 to exchange ideas with city officials. He knew it was a work in progress.
The toll among young people has been reduced in recent months, but Baltimore has been one of the most lethal cities in the nation for young people.
A tangle of powerful forces have made growing up in the city a perilous undertaking. From homelessness, to lead poisoning to the lure of easy money in the drug trade, to absence of parents and the prevalence of guns – some young men and women wonder if they have any hope of living past their 20th birthday.
Antonia Keane, a professor of Sociology at Loyola University In Baltimore and a student of the drug culture, says the fate of some young people in Baltimore can’t be surprising.
“Nobody’s raised them. No one’s raised them, and these kids really just don’t have a chance. … I met a foster mother who had two foster children. One boy was born crack addicted. She told me the boy’s mother had 11 children all of who were crack-addicted. Now you tell me what kind of chance those poor children have.”
Nor was this the only such case in the inventory. Far from it. Angela Conyers Johnese, a lawyer with Advocates for Children and Youth, says she and her colleagues came across an even more troubling case if that is possible.
“One of the files we encountered was of a young man who it was revealed had a substance abuse problem. And not only did he have a problem but his mother had a problem. They were using drugs together. And so if you have a parent using drugs with her child what do you expect will happen to that child?”
Johnese says the state needs to re-balance its approach to families in crisis.
The system is broken. One thing we’d like to see is for the system to prioritize services. By the time you get to the juvenile services system other systems have failed families. It’s too late. So we are urging service system to strike a balance between enforcement and service.
Epidemic dysfunction at home and violence on the street won’t be easily or quickly ended, said Antonia Keane, the Loyola professor.
“… One of the things that we found out is that even in neighborhoods that have gotten rid of crack, there isn’t some sort of deus ex machina miracle that happens. There’s still violence, you know, violence doesn’t go away. I certainly understand that this economic situation that were in now has a disparate impact on people who didn’t have great prospects to begin with.”
In Baltimore, says Ray Winbush of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University, kids face what he calls a “historic trifecta” of negative forces: the Vietnam War, AIDS and the crack epidemic – all of which removed men and women from roles they might have filled as parents.
“We are seeing the results now of the parents of the crack generation beginning in ’81 are now in their 20s and 30s… And they are the first generation of African Americans growing up experiencing a no-parent family, a one-parent family and we can see that in many of these children.”
Destructive forces – and their own behavior – have young people into crime targets.
“It was usually the other way around. Juvenile homicide was almost an aberration in the 50s and 60s. … Baltimore you know leads the nation in juvenile homicides below the age of 15.”
Kids in Baltimore suffer from at least one more major liability: lead poisoning. It can ruin lives almost before they begin while posing a threat to the rest of the city.
Long-time anti-lead poisoning crusader, Ruth Ann Norton, says lead poisoning is a factor in criminal behavior.
“There’s a very clear link which was established by Herbert Needleman at the University of Pittsburg between lead poisoning and juvenile crime and violent behavior. What you have to think about … this is a city where in 1993 there were 12,000 and 13,000 kids a year who were lead poisoned and we weren’t testing every kid.”
Many of those kids are teenagers now. Some of them grew up with impaired brain function – loss of critical thinking ability and impulse control, Norton says. She’s director of the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning.
“You have taken the knees out from under them before they’re three years old…Their brains have been damaged. We have destroyed their reasoning ability.”
For various reasons, young people begin to accept the idea that violence is just a part of their lives. And when people begin to expect violent reactions on the street, there is a tendency to act pre-emptively – to land the first blow, in a sense.
Dr. Phil Leaf, a student of youth violence at the Hopkins-Bloomberg School of Public Health, says the plague of violence and death can change a young person’s fundamental approach to life.
“You become hyper-vigilant. You physiologically try to respond as quickly as possible. It’s not necessarily conducive to thinking through options or negotiating with people because the consequences of being wrong can be your life.”
Poor parenting is another factor in the toxic growing up atmosphere, says Dr. Leaf.
“In our communities we have a lot of parents who have died, who literally will never be available to a child. So they have to deal with the loss of a parent. Older siblings are taking on the role of parenting a brother or sister. It’s another pressure that comes when kids are trying to go to school, trying to figure out their own lives, trying to be in a safe place that doesn’t land them in jail or land them dead.”
The cumulative toll of violent death in Baltimore communities has had a chilling and enduring impact in some neighborhoods, says Kim Armstrong, whose son, Eric, was killed 6 years ago.
“Just say, for instance, 200 murders a year, consecutively, OK? Can you just imagine how many hurt people that is? How many hurt families, mothers, fathers, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins? And when you look at our community, you see more and more people on heroin, crack cocaine, alcohol, have just devastated our community.”
At the same time, much of blame for violence in the streets lands in the lap of families. Armstrong says the judgment often comes without a full understanding of what many Baltimore families face.
“Sometimes parents can’t take time off from work. There are cases where there are other children and who have to work They cannot come back and forth to court. I think that what happens is not that they don’t want to come. They can’t come. There’s no option. Especially, when they are the bread-winner. Sometimes they’re working two jobs.. Sometimes they’re going to school and you’re just overwhelmed. Sometimes you do throw your hands up. What else can I do? So, what do they do? The assumption is they don’t care. I don’t’ think that’s necessarily true.”
Ken Harris was able to make his children Job One. Annette recalled how determined he was to be sure his kids were doing well in school – sometimes to their embarrassment.
“Ken always went to visit their schools. My son would often say his father was the only one who came to school. The guys would tease him at Calvert Hall. ‘Hey your Dad’s in the cafeteria.’”
At the same time, he never stopped wishing he had had a father, one who was part of his life. He knew who his father was, but could never connect with him. Annette Harris says she tried to arrange a reconciliation. The older man was unwilling.
But Harris did have a strong support system: his wife; life long friend from growing up in the Park Height s neighborhood, Harry Black; and his pastor – the Rev. P.M. Smith of Huber Memorial Church. Reverend Smith says Harris kept things in perspective even after he lost a race for city council president in 2008.
“We ran a spirited campaign. We did the best we could with the resources we had. We feel good. We fought the good fight.”
Because he was such a zealous parent, because he was so involved in community work, his murder – his loss to the community – created an wound felt today.
Shirl Byron, who runs a community development program in Harris’s councilmanic district, says the neighborhood thought of Harris as someone who ran for public office, not as a career, but as a way to make life safer for families and healthier for young people.
“We never thought of him as being so famous or The Honorable. He was truly one of us. Not a council person from afar. That for us, for me, made him one of us and a champion, therefore, for us.”
Thus did his death in 2008, allegedly at the hands of 15-year-old boy, stun the city.
“If that could happen to Ken how safe were we?”
The question was widespread.
Michelle Manning, a freshman at City College, said Harris’s death made her see all over again that life anywhere in the city could be dangerous. The alleged killer lived in her neighborhood.
“It was kind of shocking. It opened my eyes. Anything can happen to you at any time. Everybody was shocked to know this person lived in their neighborhood.”
Harris wanted opportunity for young people like Michelle Manning, a good student with a goal. Ever since first grade, she says, she has wanted to go to Harvard. She wants to be a defense lawyer. She knows what it will take—and she’s gotten used to fending off those who ridicule her aspirations.
“They try to discourage me. They say, ‘Michelle, you think you’re better than everybody else. Michelle you got all A’s.’ I just want people to know that nobody handed it to me. I worked for it because I wanted it.”
Harris would have understood.
(Ambi: music from the service; “Harris funeral choir, 20 seconds)
His death brought anger, as well s fear, to the city and to the Northeast Baltimore community in particular. Harris’s pastor, Rev. Smith of Huber Memorial Church, cried out against the loss.
Ken, he said, was following scriptural instruction in his life. He quoted a well known Bible verse.
“Teach us to number our days. Teach us to number our days. That we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Home boy translation: Teach me to count my time. Teach me to know the truth that I might know the truth and apply that truth to my life so, I won’t waste my life. That I might apply that truth to my life. That I might not waste my life.”
The minister asked members of the congregation to ask themselves if community could really survive in the culture of violence that took Harris’s life.
“We call it community, but is it really community, when there is a homicidal, suicidal romance with violence? Community exists when there is respect. When everyone knows the neighborhood children and when the children respect adults.”
Harry Black, who came for Harris’s funeral, felt the irony and personal loss of Harris’s death profoundly.
“The people he advocated for are the people who murdered him. He was not afraid to go into neighborhoods. That’s the tragedy. We don’t have many heroes.”
He says he and Harris were always going against the grain. They wanted to escape the killing streets but they told themselves they wouldn’t feel good if they didn’t help others escape.
Black had worked for years in state and local government. So he knew what Harris was up against – in the community, of course, and as someone who was trying to shape public policy.
“I was his secret weapon. I helped him shape his positions. We talked all the time.”
And yet political leaders and social service professionals remain hopeful – if the right balance can be found between enforcement and services. Governor Martin O’Malley, who served with Harris on the city council, says his former colleague, would have been a champion of both, help and enforcement.
“We achieved a 23 percent reduction in juvenile homicides in the state last year most dramatically and impactfully in Baltimore City where we were able to reduce juvenile homicides by over 50 percent. That’s more than a dozen young lives or more where Moms didn’t have to stand by grave sites.”
The governor agreed with those who say enforcement alone won’t be enough. Information gathering – and sharing, he said, are keys to progress.
“We’ve never had the ability we have now to connect our actions to the people who are most in need. That’s what effective government has to be about. Especially, in these times of shrinking budgets. You’ve got to be smarter. You’ve got to make those connections so you can get ahead of your problem. It’s true that you can’t enforce your way out of it but without enforcement you’re never going to move your way out of it.”
The question is this: How will all the many efforts be brought together to make a real difference for young people. It’s not that people and organizations aren’t pouring their hearts into helping. It’s just that t hey can’t do it alone. A governor or a mayor may have to be the unifying force.
Harry Black says Ken Harris’s life – its success against the odds – is a good answer to those who say the problems are too big, too complex. As Reverend Smith said, Harris had counted his days. He knew what he wanted from life – what he wanted to give – and he went after it with high spirit and love.
“You can be successful if you put in the right effort. You can win if your heart is in the right place.”
I’m Fraser Smith, reporting in Baltimore, for 88.1, WYPR.
Teenager Jerome Williams, who city prosecutors say pulled the trigger on the gun that killed Ken Harris, is scheduled to go to trial in April. Our series, “Growing Up Baltimore,” is made possible, in part, Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence. The findings and conclusions presented in our series do not necessarily reflect the opinions of these organizations.
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