The same things that were said in the 1960s, when violence erupted in Baltimore after activist Martin Luther King Jr. was shot down and killed at his motel in Memphis, Tenn., is more or less the same things black millennials are saying 50 years later.
At least that’s what a professor at historically black Hampton University says, comparing the 1968 Baltimore riots to now like “a line that runs through” generational.
A former reporter for The New York Times, professor Earl Caldwell was a witness to the violence that erupted in Baltimore shortly after the King assassination. In fact, he was there in Memphis and in Baltimore reporting and storytelling “the urban riots that were taking place” as he traveled.
“You can’t keep going down these same roads … something terrible is happening now, but so many pieces are in place for a catastrophic event,” he told 10 On Your Side. “And it always comes back to one or two things. Police brutality is a common line. Unemployment is another signature line. I believe it’s all of these things. It’s a big pot, and the brew that it’s cooking up is not good for this country.”
[quote_box_center]“You can see this new generation, and if you talk to them, they’re saying a lot of the same things that were said 50 years ago,” Caldwell said. “The riots in the 1960s kicked off with a white cop shooting a black kid. That’s a line that runs through.”[/quote_box_center]
On what’s different now, he added:
[quote_box_center]“People don’t understand that in the 1960’s, when King was advocating, they had school for marchers, school for those who would be protesters, to teach them the do’s and don’ts,” Caldwell said. “If you look at the 1960’s, every neighborhood burned down. Nobody came to build it back up. Businesses lost. You see a whole new generation come and question why there are no grocery stores. Well, you burned them down.”[/quote_box_center]
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