This thesis project is a culmination of archival work with the Afro Archives, research into housing and transportation practices by the city of Baltimore, interviews with experts, and ethnographic work with Black Yield Institute. Its final place will be on a website containing both audio and visual elements and this is the existing script along with a few of the visual elements.
This project is organized in 4 episodes discussing the housing practices and actions by private institutions like Johns Hopkins had in creating a health disparity for the Black community in Baltimore. I will be zooming in on the story of Jet Market, a Black-owned co-op, to exemplify the role both Hopkins and the city of Baltimore had in maintaining food apartheid.
The first episode will provide the context of the discriminatory practices that exist in the housing market that hinders access to grocery stores. The second episode will define what food apartheid is and how it is maintained. The third episode contains the story of a Black-owned grocery store named Super Jet Market and its rise and fall. The final episode consists of the current work of the food sovereignty movement and what can be done next.
Redlining Map of Baltimore
Beginning in 1933, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) created “Residential Security” Maps to grade neighborhoods on a scale from Best (Green) to Hazardous (Red). Areas were rated by the amount of Black people or foreigners located there. Baltimore’s redlining was created in 1937 a collaboration between Baltimore’s real estate brokers, real estate companies, a store cashier, a Goucher professor, and federal and state HOLC and FHA employees.
City of Baltimore’s Bureau of Plans and Surveys provided HOLC the cities’ data. Baltimore generally was given a D rating due to “industrial encroachment” and an “invasion of Negro, foreigners”. East Baltimore received a red rating, warning investors against providing loans and capital for the area. The detrimental influences of the area were a “heavy concentration of foreigners” and the property was in a “very bad state of disrepair”. In the clarifying remarks, the area around Johns Hopkins Hospital was noted as a highlight – “Properties around Johns Hopkins Hospital are better than the average and have considerable desirability in homing hospital attendants and for commercial value” (Mapping Inequality).
