The city of Baltimore has been dubbed the “city of neighborhoods.”  Seventy-two designated historic districts exist that have been traditionally occupied by distinct ethnic groups. Baltimore’s inner harbor was once the second leading port of entry for immigrants to the United States and a major manufacturing site. The streets form a unique grid pattern lined with tens of thousands of brick and formstone faced rowhouses where people have been creating an identity with ardor and conviction since the city’s beginnings. Baltimore’s citizens have formed strong coalitions and clashed in opposition to established values. 

Historically, Baltimore has been a volatile and challenging location in which to live. The Second Continental Congress met there, making Baltimore the Capitol of the United States from December 1776 to February 1777. The city is about to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812.  After burning Washington DC, the British attacked Baltimore the night of September 13, 1814. US forces stationed at Fort McHenry successfully defended the city’s harbor. From the bow of a British ship where he was negotiating the release of an American prisoner, Francis Scott Key, a Maryland lawyer, witnessed the battle and later wrote the poem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” which was to be set to music and named the national anthem of the United States. The Baltimore Riot of 1861 was led by Confederate sympathizers, resulting in Baltimore’s occupation by northern troops stationed there to prevent Baltimore’s secession from the Union. A traditionally working class port town, the workers rose up in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. In 1904 the Great Baltimore Fire burned more than seventy blocks to the ground. The Black population, growing to nearly 50 percent, and presently 64%, staged the Baltimore Riot of 1968 after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Baltimore is a city of firsts.  From a long list, Baltimore has had the first--post office system in the US, general meeting of the Quakers, water company, sugar refinery, Sunday newspaper in America, investment banking house, electric refrigerator, hydrogen gas illuminated streets, Catholic seminary, canning of oysters, national nominating convention for President of the US, dental college in the world, public supported high schools for girls, telegraph line, ice cream freezer, Jewish Community Center, YMCA, black labor union, animal welfare association—American Humane Society, and African American to serve on the Supreme Court—Thurgood Marshall. Johns Hopkins, adopting the German model, was the first research university and Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman from Baltimore, without her consent, provided the cancer cells that became the Hela immortal cell line used by cancer researchers worldwide.

Today Baltimore continues to make history as a vital center for the performing arts, five Fortune 1000 companies, the filming of the award winning television series, The Wire, and a plethora of movies from Sleepless in Seattle to Silence of the Lambs.  It is the home of famous film director, John Waters, the National Aquarium, the football contender, the Ravens, and a Major League baseball team, the Orioles, who play in the architecturally beautiful Camden Yards .The site of the 2012 NRHC Conference, Baltimore calls us to be movers and shakers, to locate ourselves amid diversity and forge new and vibrant ways to connect and to sustain life through science, literature, social science, business, education, art and culture. Only amid opposing forces can creativity abound.