The City that Bleeds: Race, History, and the Death of Baltimore

"It would be easy to simply dismiss [Paul] Kersey as a racist. But denouncing him or ignoring him is not refuting him. Refuting requires thought, which has largely been replaced by fashionable buzzwords and catchphrases when it comes to discussions of race. Thought is long overdue. So is honesty." -- Thomas Sowell

You’ve seen HBO’s THE WIRE, created by former BALTIMORE SUN reporter David Simon.

You might even have read his book, HOMICIDE: A YEAR ON THE KILLING STREETS, and watched the television show based upon it, HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET.

You’ve been conditioned by these and many other works to believe that the black crime and misery found in Baltimore - “the Charm City”- are the result of the twin evils of drugs and white flight.

But what if that’s not true?

Baltimore was once one of America’s greatest cities.

During the 1910s, its white population passed some of the nation’s first racial segregation laws in an attempt to keep Baltimore great. Those laws were later repealed. Today, 63 percent of Baltimore’s population is black, and it has become a city of decaying houses, blighted neighborhoods, and one of the highest murder rates in the nation.

Why the change? Could those segregation laws have had a basis in something other than hate? Could the people of 1910 Baltimore have understood something about differences in racial behavior, differences reflected in the despondent conditions of the city only one hundred years later.

In THE CITY THAT BLEEDS, Paul Kersey, author of ESCAPE FROM DETROIT, offers the reader a fearless look at the city of Baltimore and the racial realities found there - realities that challenge the narrative set forth by Simon and by those who would mythologize black pathologies in popular fiction like THE WIRE.

THE CITY THAT BLEEDS is Paul Kersey’s most comprehensive portrait yet of a city where black pride and black power combined have led to black political control - and to its disastrous consequences.

To paraphrase Sowell, it's the long overdue honesty America needs at this critical juncture in the country's history.