Cannon: History repeats until lesson learned

History always has a way of repeating itself if we don’t learn from it the first time around — which never seems to happen, especially as of late.

Baltimore knows this all too well.

link Brittney Cannon

On April 19, 1861, seven days after the American Civil War had begun, Baltimore had its first riot. Union troops from Massachusetts made their way to Baltimore from Philadelphia that morning. Maryland’s loyalty to the Union had yet to be solidified, and the troops were warned ahead of time that their transit through the city would be resisted.

Inevitably, an angry mob of protesters formed on Pratt Street, the main thoroughfare through downtown Baltimore, to greet the Union soldiers with a lovely party.

Four soldiers and twelve citizens were killed in the riot that day. The Union troops eventually made it to the next train station after the difficult march through the city, with help from city police officers.

A little over a century later, on April 5, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The next day, violent riots broke out after a peaceful memorial in Baltimore.

Crowds formed in East Baltimore on Gay Street, and by 5 p.m. that evening, some windows had been smashed. Police came onto the scene. Fires blazed by 6 p.m. An 11 p.m. curfew over the city had been called by the end of the day, and 6,000 National Guard troops were called in to quell the situation.

By the time riots had settled down a week later, six people had died, 700 were injured, and a thousand businesses were damaged or robbed.

April 12, 2015. Freddie Gray fled on foot from police officers in West Baltimore, seemingly unprovoked. Officers apprehended Gray, and a crowd began to form. Witnesses said Gray was not moving his legs and needed a paramedic, but he eventually stood on his own briefly before being thrown into the police van.

The van made several stops before arriving at the police station. When Gray was removed from the van, a Baltimore deputy said he could not talk or breathe. In addition to his spinal cord injury, Gray’s voice box had been crushed.

Eventually, almost an hour after his apprehension, Gray was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center where he later fell into a coma. He died a week later.

On Monday after Gray’s funeral services were held, people began looting a CVS pharmacy. Shortly after, it was set on fire. Then, the National Guard was called in and a state of emergency was declared.

Again, history has a way of repeating itself.

Should Gray have run from the cops? No, probably not, but he shouldn’t have felt the need to do so, either. A source that knew Gray said he had been beaten by one of the police officers before, and he was afraid it would happen again.

Aren’t police officers supposed to evoke a sense of security and not fear?

How many cases of violent activity has the nation witnessed recently due to police brutality? How many riots in the streets, how many businesses ablaze, how many protests have we faced?

Who will realize first that to get respect, you have to give respect first? And to respect people, you have to trust them first. Rioting in the streets isn’t going to earn anyone trust or respect, and neither is unwarranted police brutality. It’s a two-way street.

Maybe after we earn a mutual respect, history can start to repeat something less violent.

Brittney Cannon is a deputy editor for the Clovis News Journal. She can be reached at: [email protected]