The night of Monday, April 27, 2015 will be one that the residents of Baltimore City will never forget. The world watched in horror as the city erupted in violent protest, looting, arson and destruction of property.
The next day as we traveled through the city, we witnessed members of the community coming together to clean up after the activities the night before.
Sorority sisters from Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. were busy helping the residents of the Penn-North Senior Citizen Home with food and water. They also were helping the residents fill their prescriptions since the CVS Pharmacy right next door was looted and was burned out.
Students from Coppin State University and Morgan State University were busy helping with the clean up in the area around the burned out CVS Pharmacy.
“Cleaning up North Avenue was very important to me,” said women’s basketball junior forward Jordan Swails, who led Coppin State in scoring this past season and was named to the All-MEAC Tournament team. “I’m living on campus, which means that North Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue is in my backyard. It was very terrifying so I felt like I had to make a difference.”
Helping to control the crowd and the flow of traffic around the area of North and Pennsylvania Avenue was the 300 Men organization along with other community organizations.
Later in the day, Reverend Al Sharpton made a brief statement after meeting with the mayor and other city officials at City Hall. He said he was in Baltimore to lend support for the Mayor and the City of Baltimore and to ensure that justice and peace would get served.