Describe the area in which you work.
I work all over. Baltimore has changed a lot. They have pushed out a lot of poor people. I work with people on Caroline Street. Also the projects I work in are Perkins, Douglas, Gilmor, and others. They’re taking away public housing. Now people have nowhere to live. We fight for basic things like food and shelter. Shelter is getting to be a real challenge.
I work with a mother with three children. The police came to her house and found a tiny amount of marijuana. As a result, she and her three children are homeless. Average rent in Baltimore is $800 or $900 per month, which she cannot afford. She goes from place to place, depending on family members to take her in. The homeless shelters in the city are a joke. Her sixteen-year old can’t stay with her at a shelter because he’s considered an adult male. She wanted to stay with me, when I have is a one bedroom. She says all she needs is a floor to sleep on.
Describe the conditions faced by the young people in Baltimore.
I deal with children and people on a daily basis who don’t have shoes. They wear fifty cent flip flops all summer long. And it’s not only that they don’t have shoes. You got parents who can’t get a proper shirt or pair of pants.
We dressed the children ourselves, because they don’t have clothes.
The children come to me are often hungry. A boy told me ten different ways to fix “Oodles of Noodles.” He wanted to know why I didn’t have “Oodles of Noodles.” I hate “Oodles of Noodles.” One day I made spaghetti, and he had some. He said it was some funny tasting “Oodles of Noodles.” I gave him a cupcake instead.
Many of the children we deal with are in a shelter at night. They walk the street during the day. We take them on field trips. We educate them in Black history. We teach them art. Every child who went to Big Momma’s house was one or two grades ahead when they went back into the public school system.
Do many of these children have parents who are locked up?
If you have ten children, maybe half of those will have parents who are locked up.
The education system has failed the children. The system has failed them. We have failed them. The system thinks nothing of putting them in prison. In fact, they think nothing of putting the children in prison with the older people.
If you’re a black male walking down the street, you’re a target. I’ve seen police strip the boys down to their underwear. Even make them take their underwear off. Do a body cavity search. They will grope all over the girls’ breasts. And the children haven’t done anything.
A ten-year old told me: The police better not mess with me. I asked him what he would do if they did mess with him. He said: I will kill the police.
Police stomp a man like Tyrone West in the chest. They know what they are doing. Then they say it was okay, the man is dead. But that man was a father, an uncle, a brother.
People think children don’t see all these things. They keep telling the children to be peaceful.
The children were tired. They were caged. How do you expect them to feel when they keep seeing the police kill us. The officials always come up with some explanation for why they killed us.
How do you think Tyrone’s children are going to feel when they see that the police beat their father or uncle to death? So the anger is already there in the children. The powder keg was already there. The children throwing rocks in Baltimore were not thugs, thieves, or soldiers. They did what they had to, and now the whole world is noticing. I am proud of them.
Minister Malcolm told us, never start a fight. But if they bring it to you, make sure you finish the fight.
This government goes over the world talking about human rights. We [Black people in Baltimore] ask: Am I not a human? Just because my skin is brown, or black or red, am I not a human? We have not gotten any human rights yet. We have to pray, get up, and start battling. I’ll be 75-years old in August, and I’ve been praying to see this day.
I’m tired of the preachers, faith-based leaders. They keep talking about peace. We haven’t had any peace since we’ve been here.
Those children were doing what we should have done. If you want respect from those devils, you must command it. I understand from people who were in the first march, people were spitting on them. My grandson and other young people told me they were spit on. They were called niggers. The white people who were with them were called nigger lovers. They had beer thrown on them. And they decided they were not going to take it anymore.
All the public radio and television personalities were talking bad about the children. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and all the other self-proclaimed advocates came into town, and thumbed their nose at the people. They didn’t march with the people. They met with the mayor.
I didn’t see any of these men come out in defense of the children, except [Pastor] Jamal Bryant. And he stayed only five minutes. I prayed that the Lord would smite them. They are part of the problem. Then for [Baltimore Mayor] Stephanie Rawlings Blake to call our children thugs. The next election, everybody who has breath in their body should work to get her out of office.
[Police Commissioner] Batts came into office with the agenda to eliminate our people. His plan was to push Black people out of the city. They got rid of all the Section 8 [subsidized] housing, making it very difficult for poor people on very low incomes to survive in Baltimore.
Another problem that arises: If you don’t have water, the government can take your children from you.
Why would you not have water?
Because you couldn’t pay your water bill.
And why would that be? Wouldn’t a water bill be at most $30, 50, or 100? That doesn’t seem like a big deal, considering how high rent and utilities are in Baltimore.
The water bill may be $300, $400, or $500.
So the pretext of unpaid water bills is one way the System separates Black children from their parents. In what other ways do they attempt to destroy the Black family?
The media aired that clip of the woman who grabbed her son out of the protest. She slapped him in the head. They aired that many times. They were gloating over it.
But think about it: In the times we live in, if a Black parent beats their child, they’re going to jail. Parents can’t even holler at their children, because the police will come and take the child away from the parent.
A woman across the street whipped her child for stealing out the Dollar Store. The cops came and locked the mother up. Next time they try to do that, I’m going to remind them about that woman they put on TV. It was okay for her to hit her son upside the head, because he was part of the Uprising (which they call a “riot”). These people [in government] are liars and connivers.
Talk about the terminologies used by the government and corporate media to describe the young people who participated in Monday’s actions.
The word “thug” came out of our mayor’s mouth. It got picked up by the media who kept it going. “Hoodlums” came out of the mouth of Dante Hickman who calls himself a minister.
Dante Hickman, of the Southern Baptist Convention?
Yes. And President Obama called them thieves. The media picked that up and ran with it. These are labels put on the children. If I’m hungry and can’t get food, and I take some, I’m a thief. If I’m oppressed and I strike back, I’m a hoodlum. We didn’t have a riot. I know what a riot is. I’ve seen plenty of them. We had an uprising.
The thug is the police department. The hoodlums are those down in City Hall who are doing the master’s will. The thieves are the carpetbaggers in the churches and corporations. Put the labels where they belong.
The children struck a match. They lit the fire. Let’s hope the adults have the sense to put some wood onto the fire. Continue to fight.
I’m glad the children did what they did because they stood up and said, “I’m human and I want to be treated like I’m human. I’m an instrument and a soldier in the Army of the Lord.” They’re not thugs and thieves. They’re truly soldiers in the Army of the Lord.
Reverend Mother Annie Chambers is a Black Panther, a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother. She’s a fighter for her people, which she considers to be all humanity.
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