Last week my husband and I attended the 26th
Annual Civil Rights breakfast hosted by the Office of Civil Rights and Wage
Enforcement of the Baltimore Community Relations Commission. We have been reaching out to individuals and
groups who might listen to our pleas for support to increase the number of
homeless children receiving the Weekend Survival Kit. We thought this might be another way to
connect with people interested in the program.
It was an inspiring morning filled with speeches about the
City’s work in enforcing civil rights for its citizens. And most exciting of all was to hear the Keynote
Speaker, Barbara R. Arnwine*, a well-known and well-respected civil rights
attorney and former President and Executive Director of the national Lawyers’
Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Ms. Arnwine spoke so eloquently about as many of the numerous issues related
to civil rights as she could in the time allowed her – and a bit more. I was very happy we had signed up for her
group in the breakout session following the breakfast. Ms. Arnwine has a true wealth of information
and experience in the Civil Rights movement and not only is she tireless and
dedicated to the cause but she is also extremely approachable. She graciously allowed us to take some of her
time to explain the Weekend Survival Kit and we believe that if there is any
way she can help us she will.
I came away that afternoon thinking about all the issues
affecting civil rights, from outright prejudice against people of color, to
redlining, to incarceration for minor offenses that becomes a deterrent to
gainful employment, to the lack of affordable higher education, and to many
other obstacles in life that result in a person losing a place called
“home”. I thought about my own childhood
in a tiny, three-room apartment shared with my parents and younger brother and
about how much I loved that “be it ever so humble” home. It was a place of refuge; truly my “castle”,
always there for me and always filled with love and plenty of good food. And I thought of the young homeless children
who do not have that refuge to count on and who go hungry on the weekends. How they are the last stop, so to speak, at
the end of all the civil wrongs leading to their family’s loss of home. How they are the most innocent, the most powerless. And they are in our own City. And that they are our children.
But then I thought again of why we so much want the Weekend Survival Kit to continue to serve these children and to grow to serve all of our City’s homeless children. It is a big step in pulling that homeless child from the back from that long line of injury to the very front of the line pointing toward a better future. A child with security against hunger, with a stomach filled with the fuel of food so that child’s body could grow, so that child could exercise and play and be healthy. All of which results in a child ambitious to attend school on Mondays, ready to learn and ready to take his/her place in changing what could have been a future hindered by deprivation into a future of hope and opportunities that should be available to all of Baltimore City’s children.
*Listen to Ms. Arnwine’s Radio One (WOL-AM 1450 (DC)) “Igniting
Change” – Tuesdays’s 12 – 1p.m. Listen on line: www.BarbaraArnwine.com