Page 2 - Baltimore_Sun_Editorial

The newspaper’s founder, Arunah S. Abell, is credited with
bringing affordable and independent journalism to
everyday citizens in Baltimore, beginning in 1837, at a
time when newspapers were focused on moneyed,
merchant classes and special interests. But like others in
this country during that time, Abell was a Southern
sympathizer who supported slavery and segregation. And
this newspaper, which grew prosperous and powerful in
the years leading up to the Civil War and beyond,
reinforced policies and practices that treated African
Americans as lesser than their white counterparts —
restricting their prospects, silencing their voices, ignoring
their stories and erasing their humanity.

Instead of using its platforms, which at times included both
a morning and evening newspaper, to question and strike
down racism, The Baltimore Sun frequently employed
prejudice as a tool of the times. It fed the fear and anxiety Arunah S. Abell (A.S. Abell) - Founding
publisher of The Baltimore Sun
of white readers with stereotypes and caricatures that
reinforced their erroneous beliefs about Black Americans.

Through its news coverage and editorial opinions, The Sun sharpened, preserved and furthered
the structural racism that still subjugates Black Marylanders in our communities today. African
Americans systematically have been denied equal opportunity and access in every sector of life
— including health care, employment, education, housing, personal wealth, the justice system
and civic participation. They have been refused the freedom to simply be, without the weight of
oppression on their backs.

For this, we are deeply ashamed and profoundly sorry.

Our contribution to this maltreatment is a dark and disgraceful component of The Sun’s past. As
an institution, we’ve called on many others to recognize and rectify their own bigoted practices,
past and present, particularly in these recent years of a national reckoning on race. It is our
responsibility to do the same within our own walls.

We have made efforts before to bolster diversity and inclusion, but the evolution has been slow.
The death of Freddie Gray while in Baltimore police custody in 2015, and the national light it
shone on the persistent disparities in the city, shook us out of our complacency. And, as a
movement grew across the country, as more Black Americans died at the hands of police —
Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, Anton Black, George Floyd — so did our
obligation to scrutinize The Sun’s past.

And so, now we turn the spotlight on ourselves and our institution, looking at our history through
a modern-day lens in an attempt to better understand our communities, the effect we have had on
them, and the distrust engendered by The Sun’s actions. As part of that process, members of The
Sun’s editorial board and its Diversity Committee, made up of staff volunteers, consulted the
paper’s archives and several other archives online, including newspapers.com and ProQuest,

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