Never Give Up

Baltimore has always been a second home to me. When I was young I regularly visited my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who lived there. But the Bmore that once felt as warm and familiar to me as a motherly embrace has since grown dark and distant. Today it bares little resemblance to the Bmore of my memories, a paradise that has been long since lost. Most of you—especially those who have never been there—likely picture the city as it was cast through the harsh lens of “The Wire”. And you’re right; that’s exactly how it looks today. But that’s not the Baltimore that raised me.

As a child it was Camelot, where my cousins and I would run unrestrained with neighborhood kids, playing hide & seek and walking to the corner store for snacks. There were family dinners, Orioles games at Memorial Stadium (only a relatively short walk from my grandmother’s house), and Easter Sundays. In my teenage years it was Sonny LoSpecchio, teaching me street smarts and the importance of every move I made; and it built in me a deep appreciation for the grimier side of the American Dream. Long nights on porch steps, flashing police lights, gunshots, and the antics of random crackheads were priceless required reading for a course taught in a one-of-a-kind classroom. But the progression of my character as a man underscored my Eden’s regression. By the time I had reached my early 20s, Bmore was Krakatoa, erupting with violence, cracking at the seams with crime, sinking under its own self-destructive weight.

I last visited in 2009, after a five year absence. The tailspin that had started when I was a teenager was evidenced by the shell of a great city that I found that May weekend. I drove through lifeless canyons of abandoned buildings and ignored potential. I felt something I’d never felt in previous trips to Bmore: sorrow. It came from deep within; from the child that once played freeze tag in the back alleys, and the adolescent who laughed and joked with friends while in line at Tyrone’s Chicken. The spirit and vibrancy of the past was just that—past. The paradise of my youth laid quietly on a deathbed of unemployment, poverty, and aimless bureaucracy.

Enter Carlmichael “Stokey” Cannady, a former drug kingpin and child of my Baltimore. After serving time, Stokey set out to change both his direction and that of his home, this once-glittering diamond on the Chesapeake that had him “addicted” at an early age.

From Life + Times:

After spending almost a decade in prison for leading an organized drug ring in his native Baltimore, Carlmichael “Stokey” Cannady has turned over a new leaf through the efforts of his non-profit organization Never Give Up and as an author, filmmaker, and father. Here, Stokey leads Life + Times around Baltimore as we bear witness to some of the city’s revitalization efforts as it looks to move beyond its crime-riddled history.

So maybe my Baltimore isn't dead. Maybe the seed of hope can spark renewal; maybe the warm charm and honest prosperity can return to raise a new generation, one that reclaims their birthright and makes “The Wire” look like a science fiction vision of an unknown world.

The wide-eyed child deep inside my heart, sitting on my grandmother’s porch, can only dream it so.