Announcement

This coming September, The Madison Wilson Neighbors Assoc. will celebrate the 3 year anniversary of the opening of the Police Substation at 1708 Madison Avenue. We prefer to call it a Pit Stop now.

August 2007
Yes, it's been over a year and a half since I last posted at this site. The rebuildingmadison.info site is a more reliable journal of our ongoing efforts.

My brother and I moved out of Madison Avenue in West Baltimore and out to the pretty safe suburbs. For over a year it was really nice. No late night, or daylight, shootings. No shootings at all. No dealers on the corner at all hours. Rite Aid was the closest drug store.

But all was not so well in the suburbs. I felt guilty. I felt like I'd abandoned all of our previous efforts, and everyone who had helped us make a difference, and everyone whose lives we had help make safer.

I will admit I was not looking too hard. But, when I heard about a house in Waverly, back in the city, with a yard, I had to go take a look. Before I even got out of the car I had decided. If you've read the accounts at the rebuildingmadison.info website, you'll know there's a number of stories about a Japanese Red Maple.

This new house in the city has a Japanese Red Maple.

We're back in the city, getting involved with the community organizations, and will hopefully continue to make a difference.

January 13, 2006
Enough is Enough - No Peace and Justice Here - Where to Look Next
For anyone who has followed this website or the entire account of our project and life on Madison Avenue, I must let you know now, that it is almost over. Closing is scheduled for January 27th. Yes, we're selling and moving away. Running away to the suburbs like so many before us.

I feel like I have to apologize to all of you who have supported our efforts, cooperated with the police, and assisted with actions in court, standing up with us at government and community meetings. This battle has been as much yours as ours.

Bryan has his own reasons. The deciding factor for me took place a few months ago. Through efforts with the new Central District Major and our neighbor, the Commissioner, we managed to stop the dealing on the corner for almost ten days. A lot of guys were being locked up and the floodlights and cameras were too much for them.

During this time, I was outside a few times at first, then repeatedly, watching realizing that the dealers were not the problem. At least a dozen customers came to the corner by foot and by car every hour. They stood around waiting for their "stuff". They would look at their watches, they would drive around the block, they would even call out, "Is anybody here?".

The real problem is not the dealers. It's the market. The dealers only meet the demand. A number of locals have told me that for over 30 years, this block was one of the best places to score heroin. 

I really believed that by cleaning up the street and the alleys, having the crack houses closed down, taken away from their owners, and put up for sale to the real estate boomers, and giving away space in my home to the police to use as a substation, would make a difference.

It seemed to for a while, even for a couple of years. But it's all going back. They're not afraid of our efforts anymore. They know how to work around them.

What creates the market? I think it's simple, a lack of Peace and Justice. It’s he same issue that creates most of the problems in our society. Here at home, and abroad.

I've been asked if I were sorry we wasted our time, would we ever do it again? 

No, on both counts.

I've had windows broken, all my tires slashed twice, been threatened with a gun to my face and learned some very important lessons. No, the lesson is not that you have to protect yourself. It's that because our society provides no protection to it's people they become desperate. 

I've seen results and the issues up front. Face to face. Not from some textbook or study.

Drug abuse, dealing, crimes against property and people, are all symptoms of poverty and ignorance. It’s the type of ignorance that comes from the lack of an educational system. Baltimore is a city where 40% of its citizens are at reading level 1. At reading level 1, you do not even have the skills to fill out an application, let alone perform at a meaningful job. Still, we spend a billion dollars a week on a war. . . . . . .

I have been, and remain a lifelong bleeding-heart liberal. However, I must admit that the Great Society, which I enthusiastically believed in, has been a failed experiment. We've created more problems and dysfunctional norms than we ever solved.

What's next? I don't know. 

I've been quoted as saying that, "I don't believe you can legislate away the problems of society. What you can do, is make a difference in your own backyard. And, if you make a difference, maybe your neighbors will too."

I still believe that. We need to make new differences, and I intend to look for them.

My family emigrated here from Cuba. A place we as Americans don't know too much about. We only hear negative propaganda. It seems that the truth of the situation is that we don't know much about Cuba because the system there seems to be working. 

For the last five years, I've been a prisoner of my block. My brother and I never spent the night away from the house at the same time, for fear that something might happen. This spring I am going to take a trip to Cuba. I want to see how people live there. How their society works. If the Great Society was a failed experiment here, maybe I can learn some alternatives.

Don't think that Bryan and I have abandoned our efforts. We're just retreating in our war at home, and hopefully finding some better tactics. Please check back here for my next report, from Cuba. 

Check www.RebuildingMadison.info for the progress there while we make our transition.

Again, thank you all for your support.

Vaughn

May 13, 2005
Today I read an upbeat story first published on May 8th in the Sun. It's in Dan Rodricks column. A story about a child who almost ended up being one of the many thug wannabees we see so many of in our streets every day. He was given a second chance at growing up. Yes, with foster parents, but a chance nonetheless. They allowed him to live to his potential. Something so many of the children in our streets don't have.

"I do not want my friends, family and co-workers ... to know my past history," LD wrote in an e-mail. "I only contacted you to let you know that I [succeeded] against all adversities life threw my way. I didn't come out of it unscathed, but I came out of it nonetheless a better son, brother, man and hopefully father and husband to someone one day."

When you read his story, an 8-year old being scared that he might be thought of as a snitch, you certainly understand why so many others, adults and children live that way today. Will the Governor's "Hype vs. Reality" campaign, or the City's 100-second response DVD "Keep Talking" make any difference to the people who live in fear? Does showing off the same sports celebrity who starred in the "Stop Snitchin" DVD make people feel more secure? If the Governor, Senator McFadden, Patricia Jessamy and Carmelo Anthony feel so safe, why didn't they make this announcement in West Baltimore where Carmelo Anthony grew up? If you're from Baltimore you know that the ties between those in and from "East Baltimore" and those in and from "West Baltimore" are stronger than even family ties. And the tensions between the two different parts of the city are legendary.

The story of our 8-year old boy in Dan Rodricks column defines fear as no politician can appreciate. His foster mother describes him when he first came to live with them. "He was very scared when he came here," recalls his foster mother, who also asked that her name not be used in this column. "He was very scared that drug dealers were going to get him. He thought they thought he had snitched on them. He slept with a plastic baseball bat, took it right into bed with him, and he slept with the bedroom door open. He was nervous. He didn't want to play outside by himself." We need to really offer protection to those who "Start Talkin". That would really send a signal to the thugs and wannabees.

May 12, 2005
I haven't posted here in a very long time. It's been over a year and a half. That doesn't mean I've given up the fight. It's that I haven't had the time to keep up with this site. I work in front of a computer all day long and besides, my brother Bryan does a pretty good job of informing the world of our progress and retreats in our battles in the block. You can read much more at www.rebuildingmadison.info.

I haven't given up, but it sure is hard and discouraging at times. We seem to make progress, get people interested, move the dealers away for a while, and then everything seems to go back to the status quo. My brother gets discouraged and wants to give up. I haven't got much reasoning to convince him to stay. He's often right. It's not just the dealers we're fighting. It seems to be an entire community that is resolved to accept things the way they are. Just because that's the way it's always been.

"Just leave it alone. Why do you want to change things. If you don't like it, move away." I've heard that too many times from numerous neighbors.

I often tell people about where I live and the conditions we live in. They don't believe the fact that I live only one block away from my city council representative, two blocks down the street from the city's Police Commisioner, and three blocks down the street from our district's long time member of Congress. It's not that I believe we should have preferential treatment here, it's that I believe we should at least have their ear and their participation as neighbors. They are just a few doors away.

September 5, 2003
Tonight Bryan and were invited and fortunate to join the police, both officers and brass and at least 3 dozon community leaders, activists and supporters on a bus tour of the Central District.

This wasn't your typical bus trip that you might take to Atlantic City or like the Duck Tour that you go on with your visiting relatives around the Inner Harbour. This was a bus tour on an old school bus that visited some of the Central District's high crime areas.

Why would anyone spend 4 hours on a cramped bus to see such sights? We not only got to see these corners and neighborhoods, but we also got to talk to and meet individuals involved in improving all those areas. There are a lot of people all around us making efforts great and small to improve the quality of life in our neighborhoods.

Some of these people are public servants like members of the police and the State's attorney's office. Some are municipal or private employees involved in programs treating and addressing issues homelessness, addiction and mental health. Many are private individuals doing many different things in their communities and throughout the city.

The 4 hour bus tour was encouraging and enlightening. Taking Back our neighborhoods can't be done by ourselves. Be assured, you are not alone.

August 3, 2003
TAKE BACK BALTIMORE is an effort to gather resources and ideas from Baltimore's neighborhood groups and leaders and make them available to others in the battle to TAKE BACK our neighborhoods. By creating a network of ideas and solutions that we can share with each other, you'll know you are not alone.

It's working. Don't give up.

We've just begun this project. Mark this page and come back here for more information.

Links to Neighbors

Madison Wilson Neighbors Assoc

Druid Height Community Development Corp

Bolton Hill