Leaders of the Maryland Republican Party went to Pennsylvania Avenue in West Baltimore on Wednesday with a message: Give us a chance.
The party paid for a Republican civil rights activist from the South — a niece of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — to travel to Baltimore this week for events looking at issues highlighted by the death of Freddie Gray. The activities were sponsored by the NAACP, but the Republicans participated.
After years of poverty and high crime in a city led for decades by Democrats, GOP officials say they're hoping Baltimore voters will embrace their message of pro-business policies and personal responsibility.
"The first thing is showing them the Republican Party is out there listening to their concerns," said Joe Cluster, director of the Maryland GOP. "These communities haven't been represented by a Republican in years. The Republican Party isn't going to ignore them. We're going to hear how we can best come together and show there is an alternate party besides the Democrats."
The party's guest, the Rev. Alveda King, was joined by the Rev. C.L. Bryant of Louisiana, another Republican and civil rights leader whose trip was funded by the conservative group FreedomWorks.
The civil rights leaders visited the NAACP Sandtown satellite office for a community discussion Tuesday, then attended the Baltimore County GOP Lincoln Reagan dinner at Martin's West, where presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky spoke.
On Wednesday, both King and Bryant participated a panel discussion on criminal justice reform at the University of Baltimore. They then met with members of the Pennsylvania Avenue community in West Baltimore before heading to a community gathering at Pleasant Hope Baptist Church in North Baltimore.
"The free-market system is something that folks have not been taking advantage of in this community," Bryant said on Pennsylvania Avenue, before talking with a grandfather and some elementary school students. "You have young men selling drugs. The mentality of entrepreneurship is there. The wrong method is being used."
He said he grew up in the segregated South but thinks the playing field in the country is now even enough that African-Americans can succeed through hard work.
"Yes the playing field was unlevel in this country," Bryant said. "When I grew up, I drank from black water fountains. I've ridden on the back of the bus. In 2015, those things that were not possible for me to do as a black man are indeed possible for me to do right now, if I want to do it. That's the difference."
Hassan Giordano, a member of the Baltimore NAACP's executive board, said the civil rights organization is hosting events aimed at improving conditions for Baltimoreans. Despite the assistance from the GOP, the NAACP is not engaging in partisan politics, he said.
"I don't care who helps, as long as somebody helps," Giordano said. He noted that the organization recently opened an office in Sandtown-Winchester, where Gray was arrested. Gray's death in police custody set off protests and drew national attention to problems in poor city neighborhoods.
Giordano said several Republican leaders have visited the Sandtown office, including Gov. Larry Hogan and Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford.
"Since we opened the Sandtown office, not one Democrat other than Del. Antonio Hayes has been there," Giordano said.
Still, the state's Democratic Party saw the Republican-supported events as opportunistic.