By Mark A. Thomas
Civil rights icon Andrew Young recently came to Baltimore as a guest of the Baltimore Orioles and the South Baltimore Gateway Partnership to help celebrate the establishment of the Baltimore Black Sox memorial and lift up another remarkable chapter in Baltimore’s history.
As America approaches its 250th anniversary, Baltimore’s story runs through so many chapters of the nation’s story: industry, culture, civil rights, labor, education, neighborhood life and baseball. The Black Sox are part of that inheritance. Their story reminds us that Baltimore’s history is not a backdrop. It is a source of identity, pride and possibility for what this city and region can still become.
Like many people, I knew Ambassador Young as a civil rights icon, former U.N. Ambassador, and former Mayor of Atlanta. What I did not realize until his visit was that he once served as Chairman of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, effectively the GBC of my hometown.
Ambassador Young understood the work from both sides: as a civil rights leader and as a business-civic leader helping shape one of the country’s most influential regional economies.
When former Mayor Young shared that Baltimore’s Inner Harbor helped inspire Underground Atlanta’s redevelopment in the 1980s, it was a reminder that Baltimore has made bold moves before, and that those moves have reached farther than we sometimes acknowledge.
At the time, Baltimore was one of the larger and more influential markets on the East Coast and across much of the Southeast. The Inner Harbor represented a city thinking boldly about its future and organizing public, private and civic leadership around that vision.
Atlanta went on to make major long-term bets on itself. Investments in transportation, higher education, downtown revitalization, sports and talent reshaped the trajectory of the city and state. One of them was the HOPE Scholarship, arguably one of Georgia’s most important talent investments and a major policy effort former Mayor Young reminded me the Chamber championed. It changed the lives of countless young people, including mine.
Baltimore has made major civic investments before. The work now is to make that level of ambition show up in the issues people feel every day: jobs, housing, public safety, neighborhood reinvestment and access to opportunity.
Three years ago, the Greater Baltimore Committee began a different kind of work.
Not simply merging organizations or announcing a new agenda, but rebuilding the region’s business-civic table for a moment that demanded more alignment, more ambition and more follow-through.
Baltimore had plenty of voices describing its challenges. What the region needed was stronger connective tissue: a place where leaders could organize around economic growth and investment and the long-term future of the region.
Over the last three years, GBC and our partners have helped build more of that civic infrastructure, including:
- The Baltimore Region’s first 10-year economic opportunity plan, All In | 2035, giving the region a clearer framework for long-term growth.
- The federal Tech Hub designation and the Regional Innovation Office, strengthening the region’s ability to compete for innovation-focused federal investment.
- The region’s first economic investment scorecard, giving us stronger tools to track capital flows, understand investment momentum and market the Baltimore Region for jobs and growth opportunities.
- Baltimore’s Transit Future, Downtown RISE, transit-oriented development, and industrial infrastructure priorities tied to Sparrows Point, Curtis Bay, freight, logistics and the Port of Baltimore.
- Maryland Tough Baltimore Strong, BPD recruitment and retention support, and one of Baltimore’s generational vacant housing and neighborhood redevelopment efforts, including the partnership with Enterprise Community Partners announced at Rockefeller’s Big Bets for America convening.
- UpSurge Baltimore, BLocal, and the Baltimore Social Responsibility Group, strengthening the region’s capacity around innovation, entrepreneurship, local hiring, procurement and corporate philanthropy.
We are grateful for the partners across business, government, philanthropy, neighborhoods and civic life who have stepped into this work with us. The progress of the last three years reflects their commitment as much as ours. What GBC has tried to do is help organize that energy around a clearer agenda for economic growth, investment and long-term opportunity.
Re-celebrating the Baltimore Black Sox was a reminder that Baltimore’s history is deeper, richer and more consequential than we often tell ourselves.
But it also reflected something larger in former Mayor Young himself: an understanding that sports, culture, civic leadership and economic opportunity are all connected to how a city sees itself and where it believes it can go next.
That was the dual message of his visit: honor the history that made Baltimore matter, and do the work required to make its next chapter matter just as much.
In these first three years, I hope we have honored that responsibility.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.
