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The Reverse Engineers of Poverty

BALTIMORE 15 YEARS AGO — Weaving our way through the chaotic streets of East Baltimore scrupulously plotting which corners to avoid at all costs after dark, we were unintentional co-conspirators in the life and death struggles of people we would never meet. Every choice we made dripped with sad, unintended consequences.

Buoyed by simple aspirations of an awakened America, we were intent on creating a renaissance vanguard one block at a time. Home to 300 murders a year and an unflinching poverty rate of 30 percent, we elected to see Baltimore as a city of endless possibilities. We believed in her people. Even in the early 2000s, the fearless optimism of the 1960s still seeded our thoughts and actions amidst unbelievable pain and despair.