A reckoning for Baltimore banks, asking them to invest billions more to help Black and Latino businesses and families

A man who has lived in Baltimore County for nearly 30 years wrote to ask me why Baltimore “hasn’t made itself into a model progressive city.” The city has had Democratic leadership for decades, he pointed out, and certainly the city should have benefited from the concentration of Democratic power in the Maryland General Assembly by now. Why does the city still need assistance? “I don’t know the political history of this area enough to answer my own question,” the man wrote.