They honored the wrong people at City Hall over the weekend. They brought in the last four mayors of Baltimore and unveiled their official portraits, which are lovely. In fact, they should have honored the artists and skipped the ex-mayors altogether.
You can read about the great unveiling in reporter Giacomo Bologna’s first-rate story on The Baltimore Banner website. The story is accompanied by photos of Sheila Dixon, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Catherine Pugh and Bernard “Jack” Young, the four ex-mayors.
There are also photos of Megan Lewis, Karen Warshal and Kennedy Ringgold. Their work is marvelous, as is Baltimore-based “street artist” Gaia’s. They are the four artists. Their portraits almost make us forget that the people they’ve painted did not exactly spend their time in office bringing salvation to the city of Baltimore.
And Bologna’s reporting does not belabor each mayor’s less-than-celebrated exits from office. Nor will we belabor that history here.
It’s enough that Bologna writes, “During these mayors’ 13 years in office, thousands of residents were beaten, stabbed or shot to death. Thousands more died from drug overdoses. Vacant houses spread like cancer.
“More than 50,000 Black residents left Baltimore during their tenures. A prized task force of cops terrorized residents, planted evidence and sold stolen drugs. And when 25-year-old Freddie Gray died in police custody, the city erupted in anger, putting Baltimore’s most fraught moments of civil breakdown on national TV.”
That’s a brief, painful synopsis of those mayors’ years in office. But Bologna’s next paragraph puts the ceremonial evening into real perspective.
“It would be easy to stick these four mayors with the blame, to question whether things would have been better had others been elected. Perhaps they also reflect on that. After all, Saturday’s unveiling was billed as ‘Portraits of Power.’”
But the “power” didn’t amount to much municipal progress. And so, yes, it’s traditional to honor former government leaders with portraits to be hung in the buildings where they labored.
But in this case, it has the feel of a summer camp “Awards Night,” a charade where even the low-achieving campers get their “Participation Awards.”
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” (Johns Hopkins University Press) and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home” (Johns Hopkins University).
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