As the ash of burned buildings settled on the streets of Baltimore City in the early morning hours of April 28, 2015, streets heated by the frustrated and defiant feet of thousands of protestors demanding justice for 25-year old Freddie Carlos Gray who died while in the custody of the Baltimore City police, hundreds of residents awoke to a house that needed cleaning.
Among them were a community of Muslim neighbors, their masjid and school occupying the same storefront space for four decades, a peaceful space two blocks from the ground zero of the riots which rivted the nation the last week of April.
At 7: 15 am on the morning after the night of turmoil, Zakia Amin joined other citizens of Baltimore in sweeping away the debris at North and Pennsylvania; the small pieces of glass embedded in the sidewalk were too hard to dislodge.
She had contacted the local Home Depot from the Islamic Community School at Masjid Saffat two blocks away where she serves as principal, to get cleaning supplies. A Home Depot truck dropped off $400 worth of donated brooms, dustpans, trash bags, gloves, hand sanitizer and water. "There were a number of Muslims there, but not enough, in my opinion," she wrote to community members who inquired about the safety of the Masjid Saffat and what many call the longest running Islamic School in the country.
Haki Shakur Ammi, best selling author of Mission Unstoppable- extraordinary stories of failures and blessings, gathered a group of men to guard what he calls the most precious place in Baltimore. Across the street from Masjid Saffat and to the left is Everyone's Place - the historic African American bookstore on North Avenue. Ammi tells the Muslim Link that the masjid is a force to reckon with in the area - a force of goodness. People coming from outside don't know what is important to protect, Ammi pleaded with members of the community. The bookstore is a treasure chest of African and African American history and the largest wholesaler of books on Africa in the world, according to Ammi.
Across town, the Islamic Society of Baltimore on Johnnycake Road dismissed its school due to threats of violence and escalating destruction at the Security Mall.
The area looked like a military zone as the Maryland National Guard and other police forces came into town. "Those are some big guns pointing down at us," says Antoine.
People are angry says Haleema, a math teacher at Al Huda School who lives in Baltimore City, for the abuse by the police for the past 25 years. Haleema's husband is the ameer of Masjid Al Haqq on Islamic Way in Baltimore, which did not suffer any damage during the unrest. "The younger generation has no tolerance; they are responding emotionally and are not educated enough to understand the effect that they are having on their own community," says Haleema who is a mother of young adults. Imam Earl Al Amin of the Muslim Community and Cultural Center shared that 7-10 children in the Sandtown-Winchester area where Freddie Gray was from are born out of wedlock, has highest rate of men who are incarcerated and is a 'very depressed area'.
Munir Bahar, an African American Muslim raised in Baltimore, is the organizer of the 300 men March Movement. Sean Anthony-Stinnett of the Baltimore City Muslim Council joins him. Their street engagement unit walked 15 miles through the street of East and West Baltimore on Tuesday April 28, a day after the uprising calming down an anxious city. Many have hailed his work as instrumental in stopping the escalation of violence. "A team of 120 men marched through Baltimore to help bring calm to a night that shall be remembered forever," he notes. The street engagement unit community walks on Friday night have run for the past two years through the most impacted communities in Baltimore and no one has ever gotten hurt.
The faithful prayed for a just announcement on the investigation into Freddie Gray's death, otherwise feared more days of instability. With the rest of the city, Ammi was waiting for the prosecutor Mariam Mosby to speak to the public.
He got his wish on when she made a powerful speech, commending the peaceful protestors and those who protected the city from those who chose to destroy it. The officers were charged and indicted and protesters celebrated the small victory.
The unrest acutely highlighted the lack of awareness by immigrant Muslim communities from the plight and oppression that African Americans, one-third of the American Muslim population, suffer every day in the United States. ISNA issued a statement on the damage of property that was severely criticized by many Muslim leaders for being out of touch with the realities on the ground for the impoverished streets of Baltimore City.
Does the Muslim community care more about shattered windows versus shattered spines? "People are angry and had enough of the killing of unarmed black men. May Allah protect us all," reflected Caliph Pasha.
"In the wake of dhulm in B'more, I wonder what the local ummah is doing. Shouldn't we take a stand on any just cause not just only when it affects us?" asked Syed Ahmed in a local listserv in nearby College Park.
As the Islamic Community School opened its door to students on Thursday, Muslim men from several communities including Dar us Salaam and ISB took turns guarding the students learning inside. Armored vehicles and riot police powered down North St. as essential supplies were dropped off for seniors by Zakat Foundation of America and ICNA Relief volunteers in response to an appeal by the Muslim Social Services Agency run by the Amins. The seniors in the neighborhood had no place to shop as the local stores "looted or burnt" were closed due to the unrest.
Commenters on social media reflected that businesses that were haram and predatory such as liquor stores and pay check cashing joints were not worth mourning. Some Muslims business owners did suffer losses of legitimate businesses such as pharmacies, pizza stores and restaurants.
On Monday afternoon, the day of Gray's funeral, Darwin Antoine, a photojournalist from Baltimore and a single father, was dropping off equipment, driving down Pennsylvania Avenue the Mondawmin Mall area in Northwest Baltimore. He saw a lot of traffic, a lot of police as the kids were being let out of school.
He told the Muslim Link that he witnessed police officers in full riot gear were getting on the busses and making passengers deboard. The funeral of Gray had ended hours earlier at a nearby church.
"Can I call my mom because I don't have a way to get home," Antoine overheard a young man on the blockaded roads near the Frederick Douglass High School, which is across the street from the mall. Many students from other city schools were waiting to get on secondary buses to their homes. Children from around the city use the stop as a transit hub, which is on the first covered mall in the United States of America. The bus and train system were suddenly halted because of a rumored "purge"- a call on social media for violence. They were corralled in with police marching towards them. Antoine witnessed the teens "many who were frightened" get tired of the brutal intimidation and pushed back. It took a minute for the stable situation to get chaotic. He can't tell who threw the first rock but soon the same police force that is meant to protect children was also attacking them with rocks. "Police were pushing them down Pennsylvania towards where a lot of protestors were congregated," insists Antoine, who says that he heard them referring to the teens as animals and thugs as they tried herding them a few blocks down past shuttered businesses and abandoned homes. Other parents, teachers and students collaborated the same story on social media.
"Young men are profiled, stooped, arrested where they are living," says Antoine, who lives in Baltimore County at the border of the City on Liberty Road and he believes this was a drill by the police department to test crowd control tactics.
Around 3:30, the police reported that juveniles had begun to throw bottles and bricks. Then the police department noted that one of its officers had been injured. After that the violence escalated, and rioters started looting the Mondawmin Mall, and Baltimore was in for a long night of trouble.
Relationship between police and the residents is tense. There is a list of men killed from the Baltimore City community that have not received justice. At least 109 people have died after encounters with police in Maryland between 2010 and 2014. Nearly 70 percent of them were African American. The police department of Baltimore has paid $6 million in fines for brutality. "These kids are already criminalized. Watching their friends and family getting attacked by police is an everyday vision for a lot of these kids."
"Police should do some community service in the neighborhoods to really build relationships with community people," suggests Antoine. Ammi believes that police should be hired from within the neighborhoods that they live in so they are invested in their communities. "If you have no regard for the people you are supposed to protect and serve or see them as something to value, you will not have empathy for them." We need to give them opportunities, get rid of the abandoned homes - whole blocks are in blight - get rid lead painted homes, and the slumlords.
"What do we do to make this better because our people are not taking it any more," asks Imam Hassan.
"People do not trust the police," says Imam Hassan. A Muslim brother from the Department of Justice stops to pray at the masjid and a 60-year-old brother says, "I donít want to talk to him; I am traumatized by the police because my experience was so negative."
Imam Hassan Amin is the chaplain at John Hopkins University; he moved to the Baltimore community from Philadelphia in the eighties. In March of 2015, he joined Baltimore Police department as a chaplain of the 9th district. Going through a month long training, he is the only Muslim imam that graduated from the BCPD Chaplaincy program. He trained to ride along with police officers and talk to them about their problems- donating about 20 hours a week. "Our presence may bring a spiritual calm to the sour relationship, bring some peace between citizens and the police," he shares. The program was officially set to go into effect this summer but is now needed more than ever.
Imam Hassan says that many of the police officers have never had contact with an urban African American population. Some in his district are from York, PA and other rural and suburban areas. All they have ever known about the Baltimore City is from rap music, or TV shows like the Wire or Homicide. They don't know how to interact with the community. "These negative stereotypes are reflected in their attitude as they treat the community in a negative way. Not all officers are bad. There are good and bad citizens and good and bad officers," says Imam Amin, "there are more good, decent officers but the bad ones are highlighted. The commissioner has to weed out the bad ones, he says, as they do not follow lot of official procedures and come to work just for the paycheck." As the Muslim Link was interviewing him on better police training, a gun was discharged at the corner of North and Pennsylvania and people had started gathering back up. The police say the man own weapon discharged, but few will believe it. "We can have a beautiful relationship between citizens and police but not if we donít address the trauma and rebuild the trust," he says.
Imam Mikaeel Smith of Islamic Society of Annapolis and Imam Yasin Sheikh of ISB attended a rally and the meeting of local clergy and reflected on the crisis. "In a rally that I attended the day after the riots, Baltimore residents gathered both young and old along with over 100 clergy of different faiths to discuss or vent their frustration. A common message voiced many times over, was the extremely poor standard of education in the public schools of Baltimore," shared Smith. Imam Yasin in a message to his congregation urged them to show concern for fellow citizens and not ignore the protestors' call for justice just because they live in safe neighborhoods and donít experience injustice on a daily basis.
"Make dua for the resident of the city at Jummah, at home after every salah. Make intention that I am going to make dua for Muslims and non-Muslims because without prayers there is no hope. Allah says ask from me. Not anyone else," requested Imam Hassan Amin.
"We have people on the ground trying to provide services to the vulnerable people of Baltimore City and Muslims can support these services. Do this continuously. This pain and suffering will continue after the news cameras are gone," he said.
These 400 senior citizens can't shop for their medicine and groceries so we have been providing them with essential items. "One lady says I am down to my last cracker," he said "We okay because the Muslims came to help us; they came to help us first without fanfare," she let the local councilman know. "They smile at us with or without teeth because we give them respect and dignity. They can feel the love that we have from them," says Imam Amin.
"The status of elder African American Muslims in our Muslim American communities should be like that of the Companions of Badrís status to the other companions. They deserve a degree of respect simply due to the struggles they made. Struggles that have been made by indigenous Muslims made it easier for our immigrant Muslim," wrote Imam Smith.
On Sunday May 3, 2015, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake lifted a citywide curfew, the Maryland National Guard began withdrawing its forces and shoppers returned to Mondawmin Mall.
Zakia Amin's powerful words struck the larger Baltimore community," Some of the leadership of the Muslims in this area are being productive, calling people to Islam and showing and teaching people what Islam is all about. At least 2 local imams were in the streets on Monday night seeking peace. So maybe, just maybe, the recent actions in Baltimore have awakened us to our mission that was given to us by Allah. We have to establish Islam in the land, or at least give it our best effort. That means we have to come out of the comfort of the masajid."
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