The commotion was enough to drown out another news conference scheduled nearby by the Baltimore branch of the NAACP.
Hall clutched a hot pink megaphone in her hand. “Come outside, Mr. Mayor,” she said. “We just wanna have a talkie talk.”
It’s a scene that’s played out in various forms across the U.S. for the past year as workers, business owners, college professors and parents of school children, have demonstrated for stores, restaurants and schools to reopen — or in some cases, remain shut.
Debates about whether to remain open or closed have become particularly salient in Baltimore, where coronavirus restrictions have been harsher than in other parts of the state. More recently, restaurant owners expressed frustration bordering at times on rage with the city’s closure of their businesses. One Maryland trade group sued the city of Baltimore, charging that the restrictions that kept them shut were unfair.