PRINCE’S BALTIMORE
Still Demanding Change Five Years Later
On June 7, 1958, the legendary Prince was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The singer and icon would have turned 62 this year. He would have witnessed the riots and protests demanding change — all because a black man died at the hands of a white officer in his hometown.
Prince’s Estate released a music video for the song “Baltimore.” It was a response to Freddie Gray’s death from injuries to his spinal cord while in police custody. When Prince wrote the song, he performed it at his Rally 4 Peace concert held in Baltimore in 2015.
“With everything going on there this week, I had a lot I needed to get out,” Prince said at the time.
The music video is informative and poignant. It provides context for the chaos at the time. Images of Baltimore’s riots after Gray’s death serve as the backdrop for Prince’s emotional words:
“Does anybody hear us pray?/For Michael Brown or Freddie Gray/Peace is more than the absence of war.”
Five years later, many of the same people are protesting for change. When George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery died at the hands of police over the last two months, the world dropped everything and marched—in the middle of a global pandemic. The music video paints a stark reality that not much has changed. If we don’t demand change, ten years from now, we will watch “Baltimore,” and see that nothing much is different. Be the change.
