06/09/2020
I am posting this state on behalf of SP Arch because as principal, I believe in leadership by example. I have watched the public responses here in Baltimore and around the world to George Floyd's public murder. I am reminded of Freddie Gray in 2015 and Dr. King in 1968. Born some 31 years earlier in the same West Baltimore community as Freddie where segregation started the moment you left the womb. I am both angry and encouraged at the same moment. As with Dr. King, young people are standing up, marching, and leading as if their very lives depended on it. Well, that's because their lives do depend on it, not just in America but around the world.
In this time of the pandemic, many comparisons have been made to the of number deaths with other tragic events in history. One comparison that hasn't been made, is that to the number of people of color in this country who have died in our war for freedom and rights entitled to every human being to just simply breathe. The right to breathe without harassment and to have the simple expectation that we can sit in our car, go to the store and buy Skiddles, walk down the street or stand on a hotel balcony early in the morning is something that only the privileged can take for granted in America. That privilege is not about money or something earned, but instead, something that they took no part in creating, the pigment of their skin.
As a member of the "Less than 500", I know too well about the glass ceilings. As an African American woman who is an architect and sole principal of a firm, I also understand the difficulty in finding opportunities in the private sector and priming work in the public sector. I been fortunate to have broken some barriers as the first African American to become president of our City and State chapters of the American Institute of Architects for which I am proud and honored. I'm more proud to have been able to assist a group of young people who founded the first Baltimore Chapter of NOMA and to have been it's, first president. But without economic inclusion, healthcare inclusion, and educational inclusion, our freedom is not yet won. We need to start by supporting our own and those that support us. Our Black Lives Matter and so does where we spend our dollars! ,
