BALTIMORE CITY COUNCILMAN NICK MOSBY joined the rest of the congregation leaping to their feet as the Rev. Walter Thomas hit the climax of his sermon. New Psalmist was one of the largest congregations in Baltimore, a sanctuary where every Sunday close to seven thousand congregants came to listen to the word of God from Pastor Thomas’s booming voice. As he spoke in his end-of-sermon cadence, his voice ascending, accompanied by rhythmic organ blasts, the congregation collectively, spontaneously rose. This sermon, “Right Person for the Right Time,” especially resonated with Nick at this moment. Nick knew Baltimore. It was his birthplace, the place that raised him. This was a moment he’d been anticipating, the moment he’d come back home for.
Nick had grown up in a two-bedroom house with six women, raised by his mother, Eunice Orange, the matriarch of the family and the bulwark of Nick’s life. Nick’s father was a major presence in the city—everyone in Baltimore knew him. Everyone but Nick. Nick only met his father six times in his life. The last time had been when Nick was in ninth grade and his father showed up at Nick’s new school in a brand-new black Cadillac. Pulling up slowly as Nick walked out of the school’s main building at the end of the day, he stopped and rolled down the window. “Here you go, son,” his father said as he handed Nick $1,000 in folded bills. Nick peered in through the car window. His father looked thin and frail; sunglasses hid his eyes. Nick took the money and wanted to say more, but once the money changed hands, the car quickly pulled off. Nick never saw his father again.
At that point Nick had just been accepted to Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, or “Poly,” as it is known around the city. It is one of the oldest high schools in Baltimore, a selective school that students test into and need to work hard to stay in. Considering that Nick’s first school had been Chinquapin Elementary—a school Baltimoreans called “Chicken Pen” before the city closed it down—going to a place like Poly was hardly foreordained for Nick. But he had a few things going for him. One was his incredibly inquisitive and analytical mind. Another was a persistent mother who only had a few rules for her son: be honest, take care of your family, and when you have the chance, leave Baltimore.
And so he did—at least for a while. After high school he went to historically black Tuskegee University in Alabama for an engineering degree. His mother believed that, armed with his degree and his enchanting smile, he was ready for bigger things than Baltimore could provide. She wanted him to see the world outside of Baltimore and never come back.
Baltimore had been home to the Mosbys for generations, and while the family’s roots were there, pain lived there, too. Nick had the chance to chart a new destiny for their family. After college he received job offers from all around the country, with the exception of one place: Baltimore City. But that’s where he decided to go.
This time, though, he was not coming home alone. While in college he’d met a beautiful and ambitious young woman from Boston who aspired to be an attorney. Marilyn was from a tough neighborhood in Boston and wanted to start over in a city like Washington, DC, Atlanta, maybe Austin or Charlotte. A city that felt vibrant, like it was growing—a place where ambitions were limited only by your vision. Nick and Marilyn married in 2005, and she begged her husband to find work in one of the cities that was actively recruiting both of them. But Nick was persistent and certain. He wanted to come back to Baltimore. He wanted to be near his family. And he had a vision of his own: he wanted to one day be the mayor of the city he’d called home all his life. He’d seen growing up how elected officials had the power to either create change or stunt it. They led rallies or shut them down. Addressed pain or permitted it. Without a job offer, and watching his mother fight off tears, he and Marilyn made the decision to return to Charm City.
Now, at the end of the New Psalmist service, Nick looked down at his young daughters, the final two pieces of his Norman Rockwell–esque family portrait. When Nick had walked into church with his family that morning and greeted his fellow congregants, no one asked him about the day before, and the unrest. Nick had attended a half dozen marches over the past week. All of them had been peaceful, and, he felt, all of them had been productive. He was proud of Baltimore for taking pain and turning it into purpose, and was upset at the media for continuing to show a very small area of chaos and violence in a loop as if it represented the entire city. The violence was restricted to a few blocks and a handful of interactions, but you would think the conflict around the stadium defined the entire city. Where had the national media been when all of the peaceful marches were going on? Where was the media now, as the entire congregation celebrated together with joy and peace, no one talking about the events of the previous night? He didn’t feel like the entire story was being told. His vision of Baltimore, the Baltimore that could be, the one he’d excitedly returned to years ago, was all around him in church. The Baltimore the media was portraying was a different one. It was the Baltimore his mother had warned him about, the one she never wanted him to return to.