Dan Rodricks' column on segregation in Baltimore was a well balanced article with correct historical information ("Baltimore housing still segregated, but Jim Crow is gone." March 18).
Baltimore actually has come a long way from the 1950s, and there is a strong African-American middle class too that has fled to the suburbs.
Preventing loss of jobs would have helped prevent many drug problems, but the city is on its way back with new generations of diverse people drawn to it.
Integration didn't come without a price, however. It usually takes several generations of upheaval before the goals of jobs, education and good living conditions for everyone can be realized. There have been untold numbers of African-American college graduates produced in the past 40 years.
Remember, we don't just have a black lower class in this country; we have a lower class comprised of blacks, Native Americans, Latinos and whites living in urban ghettos, Indian reservations, ruined towns and smaller cities across the heartland. At least half of American cities are in the same situation as Baltimore.
Maybe Americans should be required to travel their entire country to see what is going on out there and remind themselves that American history has been built on the monopolies created by the robber barons and the economic crises that resulted since the day our forefathers landed on these shores.
Celie Hanauer, Abingdon