Commentary

Duke Ellington arrived at The Famous Ballroom in Baltimore on a Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1972 in a limousine with Babs Gonzales, one of the vocalists for his band. The rest of the musicians, traveling by bus, had not yet arrived for their performance hosted by the Left Bank Jazz Society, recalled John Fowler, a founding member of the organization.

I write about my own life a lot. I just never wanted to be this particular story. I had just sent a Zoom invitation to Rolanda D. Chambers of Owings Mills’ Golden Voyage Travel on Thursday for an interview about how changes in weather have made booking trips so uncertain in the last year. As I was double-checking the email, I got an alert from Amtrak informing me that my long-anticipated train ride on the Adirondack line from New York to Montreal, which my son and I had been learning French for, was canceled.

The word “promise” has many definitions. One indicates commitment, a “promise” to follow a course of action. Another anticipates excellence, something that shows great “promise.” When our city, county, community, state and federal partners gathered to announce the relaunch of the Baltimore Red Line, we celebrated both meanings of that word. The Red Line is a promise to connect East Baltimore to West Baltimore — and beyond — through affordable public transit, and it’s a promise to unleash the full potential of the residents of the city and the county.

“The Tempest” begins with a storm. That’s all Shakespeare provides, just a few stage directions: “Enter Mariners wet.” And some yelling. For Sally Boyett and her team at the Classic Theatre of Maryland, that is enough. “We’ve got an elaborate soundscape that has dialogue and sound effects in it,” she said. “We’ve got lightning effects, a lot of emotion and flash, color and moving lights. We’ve got atmospherics, which is haze and ground fog.”

During the past year, bank failures have been headline news. But largely unnoticed is an epidemic of personal check fraud. I know because a PNC Bank check of mine for thousands of dollars payable to the Internal Revenue Service was stolen, washed with a common chemical (like nail polish remover), made payable to somebody else in the same amount and cashed. Thus, my new skill set: how a check gets washed and how to prevent it.

The strongest communities are built on a surprisingly simple concept: a willingness to step up and give back. That’s the heart of what “Maryland Strong” means to me: the simple act of showing up. As Director of Community Initiatives under former Gov. Larry Hogan (R), it was my honor and privilege to witness what’s possible when our friends and neighbors commit to showing up for the communities we call home.

Maryland’s shortfall in affordable housing is well documented. One statewide study concluded that for every 100 extremely low-income Maryland households, there are only about 33 housing units available. The crisis isn’t isolated to Maryland or the Mid-Atlantic. Nationally, the United States faces a similar deficit affecting millions of families, a disproportionate number of them Black and Latino households.

We both grew up attending predominantly white public schools. As minority students, we felt isolated in classrooms with few other students who looked like us. Sometimes it seemed like we were living through a single lens — and it became clear that we were missing a variety of perspectives, and suffering for it. That’s why over many other schools, we each chose the University of Maryland, where minority students make up more than 50% of the undergraduate population. Our campus is a rare example of diversity among higher education institutions.