April 28, 2015

Some Hopeful Images From Baltimore: Residents Uniting to Clean Up the City

AP/Evan Vucci

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After an evening of violent unrest, Baltimore residents emerged Tuesday morning to clean up after the destruction and prepare for what could be more chaos. On Monday, at least 15 police officers were injured and dozens of businesses were destroyed, as rioters clashed with law enforcement officials throughout most of the evening.

Residents, including children, were seen gathering around a CVS that had been looted and torched the night before. An affordable housing unit for senior citizens was also among the buildings destroyed by fires. Many businesses remain closed until further notice.

A large part of the clean-up effort was initiated by a Facebook group seeking volunteers to help amid Monday’s violence. By Tuesday morning, nearly 2,500 people gathered at various meeting points throughout the city.

Monday’s rioting followed the funeral of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, whose death after suffering a spinal cord injury while in police custody sparked protests. Initially, those protests were mostly peaceful; Gray’s family was quick to denounce the ugliness that erupted Monday. “To see that it turned into all this violence and destruction, I am really appalled,” Richard Shipley, Gray’s stepfather, told NBC.

Many community members have also condemned the destruction. On Monday, one unidentified mother was seen reprimanding her son for participating in the violence.

Another protest is scheduled for 3 p.m. on Tuesday.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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