Uprising: 10 Years Later
STORY BY JEREMY COLLINS, MEDIA MANAGER
The murder of Freddie Gray by the Baltimore City Police Department shook the city 10 years ago and in 2025, many people are reflecting on what that moment has meant for the city. We must also remember that Freddie was a living human being with a family that loved him.
I was a sophomore at Morgan State when the uprising happened. Though I was a college student and a transplant by way of South Carolina, the crisis affected me deeply. As a child I grew up on Eutaw Street and went to daycare right at North Avenue and Eutaw. I remembered riding the subway to Mondawmin with my mother for haircuts and stopping at The Great Cookie for the famous snickerdoodles. Being in Baltimore wasn’t really a new experience, but rather a return of sorts to a place that molded me as a child before I moved to South Carolina.
Now, 10 years later, I look back at those moments in 2015 and ask with much scrutiny - how much is different? In response to The Uprising,college students like myself took to the streets, organized feed the people initiatives and mobilized to volunteer. But of course, momentum gives away and patterns settle in as time puts us further and further away.
Gun deaths plummeted last year, and the city actually saw a growth in population this year. These are positives. Yet, much of our society is still organized in a harmful system that will continue to harm people like Freddie Gray. Police brutality is just one type of violence people face. Substance abuse disorders, vacancy, and crime continue to impact Sandtown-Winchester where Gray lived. The topography of Baltimore’s “White L” hasn’t shifted much and the austerity and resegregation politics dominating our federal government threaten any potential progress.
Still, I remain hopeful. With WaterBottle Cooperative, I am fortunate in my capacity, doing the work I do, sharing, and representing the possibility for a new model of development in West Baltimore. We are working to realize a future of shared community-based equity and wealth-building. Through our partnerships with Requity and CivicWorks, we hire and train people directly from the community to actually have a stake in its development. The cooperative movement is growing strong in Maryland, opening up for radical conversations around entrepreneurship. This work is fulfilling work. There’s more to do and we’re ready for the challenge.
