Page by Sam Lazarus, Jamie Thorndike, and Brett Dollar.

The Wire’s final shot, a static view of the city’s skyline, emboldens the notion that first and foremost, this is a show about Baltimore.  The city is the serial narrative’s most present, analyzed and complicated character.  Every aspect of the show is merely one part of the city as a whole.  City hall, even with its inabilities to connect with the rest of the body, is its brain.  The schools, the docks, the newspaper and the drug trade are its muscles, making sure that the city is able to move and function together.  The people are its blood and heart, because without them there would be no life.  The Wire is as much a tribute to each of these individual parts as it is a tribute to the whole that should exist.  Yet for all the problems that individual “Baltimore,” suffers from, above all else The Wire is a tribute to the way the city endures struggle and hardship and prevails.  We see this through Bubbles, the homeless man struggling with addiction.  We see this through McNulty, the police officer fighting his own demons in order to find stability in life.  And finally, we see this through the constant reminders of the masses, the people of Baltimore, living and working together so that they may wake up the next morning and thank god for the chance to live another day.  This is what David Simon wanted to capture when he envisioned The Wire; an ode to the enduring spirit of human nature.  We hope that this context on the city of Baltimore will help you discover, at least on the surface, what David Simon saw in his beloved city.

BRIEF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Above: from the Maryland State Archives.

The City of Baltimore became independent in 1851.[1]  This means that the city does not form part of another local government entity, such as a county.  This comes up on The Wire in the form of jurisdictional disputes between the city and the county—like the dead body McNulty finds in the water in Season Two—and explains why Baltimore is often referred to as Baltimore City to distinguish it from the surrounding Baltimore County.  This city/county distinction also comes up frequently in the political arena featured in later seasons of The Wire, with Tommy Carcetti balancing the interests of the (largely African-American) city that he is serving as Mayor, and the interests of the (largely white) county residents he wants to vote for him when he runs for Governor.  Baltimore’s racial composition and politics are important features of the cities identity and history.

Maryland did not secede during the Civil War, which took place from 1861 to 1865, but Baltimore was the southern-most northern city and its inhabitants had varied allegiances in the struggle.  Confederate sympathizers attacked northern troops as they came through Baltimore and transferred between train stations on April 19, 1861, sparking a violent riot that would mark the first bloodshed of the war – four soldiers and 12 civilians were killed.[2]  Largely because of the important railroad transfer in Baltimore, with different trains from the north and the mid-west coming in roughly 10 blocks apart, Union troops occupied the city beginning on May 13, 1861 and remained until the end of the war in April 1865.[3]

In 1904 a huge fire ravaged Baltimore, burning most of downtown and a variety of historic structures, ultimately destroying more than 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.[4]   Baltimoreans rallied to quickly rebuild, stimulating the economy and allowing for an improved layout.  Baltimore was an important contributor to World War efforts as a ship-building center, but despite a strong manufacturing economy bolstered by the steel industry, development slowed during the great depression.[5]  As the manufacturing economy thrived and people experienced increasing standards of living after World War II, people began moving out of the city into surrounding communities.  This movement sharply accelerated as the decline of the manufacturing industry gradually led to substantial urban decay and “white flight”, beginning in the late 1950s and 1960s.[6] In the first scene of Season Two, McNulty and his Marine Unit supervisor gaze across the water at Sparrow’s Point, lamenting the layoffs that affected their older male relatives (McNulty’s dad left in 1973), and indicating the decline of blue-collar employment that seems to have spawned so many of urban America’s present problems.

“White flight” from Baltimore peaked in the 1960s, punctuated by racially charged rioting.  The Civil Rights Movement affected Baltimore as it did most major cities throughout the country, peaking with the 1968 riots that broke out in 125 cities following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4th.  The civil disturbance in Baltimore began on April 6, 1968 and lasted for eight days, with seven deaths attributed directly to the rioting.[7]  Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew immediately called in 500 state police officers and more than a thousand National Guard troops.  Unable to contain the chaos, Agnew requested federal troops, who arrived promptly but struggled to end the disturbance.  Baltimore’s position on the brink of the south provided for the close intermingling of northern and southern attitudes toward race throughout that were poised to erupt.

Beginning in the 1970s, Baltimore began to take advantage of federal programs for urban renewal and went to great lengths to revitalize the downtown area.  The Baltimore Convention Center was the first major piece of this effort, opening in 1979.  Restaurants and shops replaced old warehouses to create the new Inner Harbor in 1980, and the internationally-renowned National Aquarium opened in 1981.[8]  Despite these developments and the burgeoning downtown real estate market, wealth remains isolated in certain areas while others suffer from extreme poverty.

The Harbor (link to source).

RACE IN BALTIMORE

Race is clearly at the center of Baltimore’s history.  The complicated issues surrounding race in Baltimore are often explained by its identification as a border town.  Because the city has ties to both the antebellum South and the merchants of the North, its racial politics are an amalgamation of different and opposing geographical attitudes.  Baltimore is the first city along the Eastern seaboard located below the Mason-Dixon line, the hypothetical boundary that divides the country.  The state of Maryland simultaneously endorsed slavery and kept close ties with the Union government close by in Washington D.C., although Baltimore was initially a safe haven for free blacks despite being surrounded by plantations that dotted the countryside.  This contributed to the rich African-American history of this city as an enclave for free blacks.  The Wire puts forth interesting representations of the constantly changing racial identity of Baltimore – an important aspect of understanding this urban setting.

Even though Baltimore is located at the very center of the Union and Confederate divide, the city has always been home to incredibly powerful African-American communities.  From 1810 until the Civil War, Baltimore was home to the largest population of freed slaves in the United States, providing for an early network of anti-slavery support.[9]  The concentrated population of freed slaves also presented problems in terms of community organization – the sheer volume of African-Americans created fractures and divisions within communities, leading to churches and fraternal organizations as institutions of social division.  These divisions were precursors to the gang organization and factional division that fuels much of Baltimore’s violence today.  We see this on The Wire through the conflicts arising between dealers fighting for drug corners across the city.

Although race has played a major part in Baltimore’s developments, the initial conflicts in the city were not because of interracial conflict.[10]   A large percentage of the white population in Baltimore were descended from the Quaker businessmen who moved from Southeastern Pennsylvania to capitalize on the shipping business run through the port of Baltimore.  Because the Quaker populations were already pretty progressive, even in 1790 signing documents asking for the abolition of slavery in Quaker communities, the tensions between black and white were relatively low, or at the very least not-spoken of.   Instead at the forefront of community issues were the social divisions within the black communities.

Because Baltimore, for African American populations, had always been a safe haven, it turned the town into a hotbed of African American culture.  The city was home to famous public figures like Frederick Douglass and well-known jazz musician Billie Holiday.  Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American justice of the United States Supreme Court, grew up and lived in Baltimore until moving to Washington DC.  The large and politically active black populations of Baltimore were so vibrant and powerful politically that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) moved their headquarters to the city.  After the landmark Supreme Court Case case Brown v Board of Education in 1954 (argued by Thurgood Marshall), the city was one of the first to embrace the idea of integrated schools.[11]

Even when the city was at the forefront of civil rights, there was a reflection of the same nationwide unease towards integration.[12]   Baltimore citizens generally avoided issues of race for the simple reason that they were never formally addressed or focused on.  Because the black population was relatively powerful, there was a sever backlash from the white population when the during the Civil Rights movement, particularly over the issue of racial integration.  Like other cities, many white families moved to the suburbs or rural areas out of the city creating a “white flight” and leaving the inner city to largely black populations.[13]   Still, it wasn’t until the mid 1970s that the blacks became the majority race of the city and 1987 when the city elected its first black mayor (although by that time race was less of an issue, as both candidates in the election were black). The city government recently has had both white and black representatives of both parties on their board.  The same can be said for major positions within the judiciary as well as law enforcement (where 43% of the force is black).[14]   The city over time has equally worshiped its white and black athletic heroes, from Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson to Cal Ripken and Ray Lewis.

Even though many Baltimore residents don’t like to think of race as a problem within the city, there are still signs of the same segregation that plagues many urban areas.  Around 88% of students in Baltimore city public schools are African-American and there are effectively no stable integrated neighborhoods within the city.[15]   In The Wire clear racial division of the city is shown in scenes like the suburban soccer game with all-white kids, and there is substantial evidence of lingering prejudice, like the police commissioner’s failure to recognize Lieutenant Daniels because he is black. The city is certainly filled with segregation, and The Wire that this fact does not get lost on its viewers.  Baltimore’s unique place in the history of American racial politics is that race has never been at the forefront of the cities development, but always silently present.

GEOGRAPHY

Baltimore City is located in the north-central part of Maryland on the Patapsco River, which leads into Chesapeake Bay. The city is on top of a fall line, the meeting of coastal plain and continental bedrock, splitting the city into two sections – a lower portion, called the “lower city” and the “upper city, which rises 480 feet above sea level.[16]  The U.S. Census Bureau records state that Baltimore city is a total of 92.1 square miles, 88% land and 12% water.[17] The city is made up of nine different districts, which frequently come up on The Wire: Northern, Northwestern, Northeastern, Western, Central, Eastern, Southern, Southwestern and Southeastern districts.[18] There are separate Police departments for each district.  Often, the city is simply referred to in terms of East, West, South or North Baltimore. The Interstate 83 or Charles Street is used to divide the cities East and West sections, and Baltimore Street to determine North and South Baltimore. [19]

The Central region is the entertainment hub of the city, with the Inner Harbor home to Harborplace.[20] Baltimore’s two professional sports teams, the Orioles of Major League Baseball, and the Ravens of the National Football League both have state-of-the-art stadiums located in central Baltimore. This area also boasts a Convention Center and an Aquarium. Most of Baltimore’s high end shopping, dining and nightlife is in the central section. Central Baltimore is also home to some of the most influential businesses in contemporary Baltimore, including Legg Mason and Constellation Energy. The most well known neighborhoods in the central district include Mount Vernon, Reservoir Hill, and Bolton Hill.[21]

The Northern section of is where a large majority of the wealthy Baltimore citizens reside. The Roland Park, Homeland, Guilford, Cedarcroft neighborhoods are some of the most prominent. In this area are local colleges and prominent Universities like Loyola College and John’s Hopkins.  Roland Park was the first “planned” suburban community in the United States.[22]

In south Baltimore, the area below the Inner Harbor, there is a combination of industrial and residential development.  South Baltimore is significant economically and politically, as the Federal Hill area is considered to be in the southern region of the city.  The area is home to a large portion of Baltimore’s working class, as well as lower-income citizens in neighborhoods like Cherry Hill.  South Baltimore has a high concentration of restaurants and bars.  However over half of Cherry Hill’s residents live in poverty.[23]

East Baltimore (link to source)
East and West Baltimore are generally considered the less-developed areas of the city. The East side of Baltimore is mainly residential with an enormous African-American population. In the north section of east Baltimore is Morgan State University.[24] The heart of East Baltimore is almost all low-income housing, and the area is known as being one of the roughest areas in the entire city.  John’s Hopkins Hospital is located in this high crime area.[25] The southern section of the East side borders the harbor and is home to an ethnically diverse residential area neary heavy industry. As displayed in The Wire, the Harbor is a popular spot for many of the Polish Americans, Greek Americans and African Americans living in Baltimore.

West Baltimore has long had ties to the African-American citizen’s of Baltimore. The area formerly was home to middle and upper-class blacks, but the socio-economic status of the people in west Baltimore has been declined significantly and as the crime rate has increased.[26]   Noteworthy neighborhoods in west Baltimore include the housing bounded by Gwynns Falls Parkway, Fremont Avenue, and Baltimore Street.  Although the show favors the Western District for many of the street plots, most of it was actually shot on the East Side of the city.  Art director Vince Peranio notes that the lack of trees make it easier to shoot around seasonal changes, and several entire blocks of vacant houses make for quiet sets.[26½]

CLICK HERE for a Google Map that highlights various places relevant to The Wire – both shooting locations and settings for fictional events.

ECONOMY

Baltimore grew and prospered as an industrial port city in the early- to mid- 20th century, but struggles to find it’s post-Industrial identity (see the Post-Industrial Economy context).  The Wire offers an intimate look at the underground drug economy in Baltimore that offers opportunities for people that are not traditionally employable.  It is important to understand the thriving crack-cocaine and heroin trade in Baltimore as a consequence of an economic environment that—outside of a few low-level service sector jobs—otherwise has no place for participants in “the game.”

Poverty and desperation are welcoming conditions for crime. For the years 2005-2007 an estimated 28.8% of Baltimore families lived in poverty.[27] The unemployment rate in Baltimore as of March 2009 is 10.1%, [27½] but this figure ignores a significant sector of the population that is not seeking legitimate employment.  Census statistics from 2000 differentiate between the 7.2% of the population age 16-64 that is unemployed in Baltimore and the enormous 34.1% of the same group that is “outside the labor force.”[28]

Despite the poverty that afflicts certain parts of Baltimore, the city is a hotbed of medical research and technology.  The healthcare industry is crucially important to today’s city—the top employers in Baltimore are Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System, the University of Maryland Medical System, and Lifebridge Health/Sinai Hospital.[29] The city is widely considered a hub of medical knowledge. Public sector employment is also significant, with the Baltimore City Government employing roughly 14,600 people.  The Wire focuses on this public sector through the police force and judicial system, with little representation of Baltimore’s business world other than corrupt real estate developers.

Though universities are prominent employers in Baltimore, strategic planners have identified the need to improve education in the city to facilitate economic growth.  A recent report indicates that fifty-seven percent of the adult work force in Baltimore lacks any formal educational degree – a shocking comparison to the national average of 11% – while 27% have a high school diploma and only 16% have any post-graduate credentials [30].  Season Four of The Wire explores the city’s educational woes by following four middle-school boys and detective-turned-teacher Roland Pryzbylewski into the public school system.  These episodes clearly depict an institution unable to compete with the lure of the street and the drug game, most concerned with “juking” the stats for its own survival.  Truancy is a real problem in Baltimore, with 40.5% of 6th-8th grade students absent 20 days or more in 2005, a typical year.[31]  The Wire repeatedly features kids who choose the corner over school, offering an inclusive look at the circumstances that make classroom learning seem irrelevant and suggesting that lack of formal education, extreme poverty, poor or absent parenting, and the ubiquity of drugs and violence are deeply interconnected.

PUBLIC HOUSING

The Housing Authority of Baltimore City reports serving roughly 20,000 residents with their approximately 13,400 units of public housing, including 28 family developments, 19 mixed population buildings, and two senior buildings at sites scattered throughout the city.[32]  These sites aim to provide affordable housing to low-income families, the elderly, and disabled people.  Income limits for Baltimore public housing vary by family size – $23,250 for an individual, for instance, or $33,200 for a family of four.[33] Because public housing complexes, sometimes referred to as “the projects,” have become associated with crime and urban decay in so many cities throughout the U.S. – often due at least partially to inadequate funding – their funding has become a point of political contention.  Baltimore’s solution is to support a shift toward a Housing Choice Voucher Program, a rental assistance program with substantial federal funding that helps the same low-income, elderly, or disabled population afford “decent, safe housing in the private market.”

The fictional Franklin Terrace and Towers housing project featured prominently in Seasons One and Two of The Wire is geographically based on a public housing site called McCulloh Homes/Albert Spencer Gardens, located at 501 Dolphin Street, adjacent to the rooftop surveillance posts at Preston and Etting Streets.  The real-life complex includes “family” and “mixed population” developments, where single individuals are typically considered families and the mixed population units serve elderly and disabled people. [34]  When the towers come down at the beginning of Season Three, street-signs amid the billowing dust are consistent with this location (Dolphin and McCulloh), where a senior housing complex was actually demolished.  Thematically, however, Franklin Terrace is modeled on Lexington Terrace, which the New York Times called “one of the most crime-ridden and deteriorated housing projects in the city… a symbol for a failed housing policy.” [35]

From 1959-1996 Lexington Terrace had five high-rise towers with a total of 677 apartments that were all destroyed to make way for a new development, the Townes at the Terrace, which demonstrates current trends in public-housing toward neighborhood integration and partial privatization.[36]  The $60 million development received $20 million from Hope VI, a federal program of he United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, with the remainder covered by the joint venture of private developers.  Season Three of The Wire, tackling the broad theme of reform, begins with the demolition of public housing towers, invoking the national trend of reforming “the projects.”

The Hope VI program embodies this reform as it seeks to revitalize the nation’s most deteriorated public housing by moving away from isolated high-rise buildings and integrating low- and moderate-income housing. [37]  Critics are wary of private management of public funds, and concerned that the program results in a loss of housing for the poor, as only about 12% of displaced residents move into the replacements. [38]  Season Three of The Wire depicts de-isolating public housing as bringing problems of crime and drugs out into the open, as Bunny Colvin notes that “those towers” were the “paper bag” for the drug problem.  This could be a good thing if there was hope of solving the problems…

DRUGS, CRIME, AND POLITICS

Although David Simon has said The Wire is a work of fiction, a lot of the individual story arcs are based on many real-life events and people.  Baltimore traditionally has been known as one of the most dangerous cities in the United States.  A lot of this can be traced to the various factions that formed in the growth of the city after the Civil War and beyond.  Baltimore’s murder rate is nearly seven times the national rate and six times the rate of New York City.  Under current mayor Sheila Dixon crime rates have dropped by almost 17%, but the city is still widely considered dangerous.[39]  While it would be unfair to immediately assume foul play, an experienced viewer of The Wire knows better than to assume that a drop in crime statistics actually means a drop in crime.  It is likely safe to say that in comparison to other American cities, there is a very significant crime problem in the city of Baltimore, such that it is often known on the streets as Bodymore, Murdaland.

This map of recent crime allows users to view crime details by rolling over garish icons, like a cartoon fist representing assault.

Like any other urban areas there is great spatial variance in crime rates.  The revitalization of areas like Inner Harbor and Federal Hill has led to less crime in those areas, but the effect is very isolated.  Some areas, particularly in neighborhoods with larger black populations, remain mired in violent crime.  The victims and perpetrators of Baltimore’s crimes tend to be young, predominantly between the ages of 16-28.  Brutal murders designed to send messages are not uncommon – victims approached right on the street and shot at point-blank range.  This is the kind of murder The Wire shows with great frequency.  The maps below show the spatial correlation between murder and the location of black populations.  Below are two maps showing the spatial correlation between the location of homicides in the past six months and the predominantly black neighborhoods.  It is important to note the lack of murders between interstate 83 and St. Paul street, a predominantly white neighborhood of North Baltimore known as the Central Corridor.  However on the other side of the street, where the second map below shows there is a greater presence of black populations, the presence of murders immediately spikes.

Above: homicides in the previous six months, as of 2/22/09 (link to source).

Above: racial mix of block groups in Baltimore (link to source)

Baltimore’s “drug market” is also very much a reflection of that shown on The Wire.  There is a constant struggle between those involved with the drug market and everyday citizens.  For instance, a story published recently in The Baltimore Sun highlights the relationships between the two parties, and for those who have seen The Wire it is not difficult to pick out similar storylines that seemingly imitate real-life (or vice-versa).[40]  Perhaps of even greater significance is the February 22 cocaine bust where the photos accompanying the story should look eerily familiar to a scene in the penultimate episode of Season One.[41]

Like on The Wire, one interesting issue facing Baltimore of today is the pressure on citizens not to snitch or testify against others in court.  We have seen in the show the dire circumstances a person faces if they can’t be trusted and the same thing has happened in Baltimore.  In 2005 local drug dealers produced a DVD that they then handed out to locals entitled “Stop Snitching,” which then caused the state of Maryland to retaliate with a DVD of their own named “Keep Talking.”  Young kids are taught snitching is a major crime on the street and drug dealers are inclined to “tie up loose ends.”  One of the truants that Cutty rounds up in Season Three wears a “No Snitching Anytime” tee-shirt, indicating that the message is reaching the youngsters.

A police officer distributes the informational DVD “Keep Talking” (link to source).

Similar parallels between the real world and The Wire exist in the realm of politics, where Baltimore has also had its fair share of corrupt politicians driven by careerism.  The former Police Commissioner Ed Norris was convicted of a felony in 2003 siphoning money off for personal expenditures, including extra-marital affairs with six female members of the police force.  Ironically, Norris appears on the show as an officer of the same name complaining about the police department in the city.[42]   Even current politicians like the mayor Sheila Dixon haven’t escaped corruption.  In the last two months she has been indicted with twelve counts of theft and perjury, leading to investigations that will occur in the coming months.   The current governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley, while free from any political trouble was a heavy player in the Baltimore political machine as the mayor.  O’Malley is considered by many to be one of the inspirations for Carcetti, the Italian-born, well-intentioned but ultimately-politicized mayor of Baltimore (and eventual governor of Maryland).

CONCLUSION

We hope that this context, at the very least, provides you with the basic background information to understand the setting of The Wire.  However, even more importantly we hope that it allowed you to delve a little deeper and begin realize what makes Baltimore the rich character at the forefront of The Wire.  Indeed it would be impossible to channel the love that David Simon has for his city in a mere few thousand words, yet our goal is to provide you with the mere beginnings of appreciation for this narrative’s primary setting, voice, character and source of energy and life.
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SOURCES

1. Olson, Sherry H.  Baltimore: The Building of An American City.  Baltimore: John’s Hopkins University Press, 1980.
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore
3. ibid.
4. http://baltimore.org/about-baltimore
5. ibid
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_riot_of_1968
8. http://baltimore.org/about-baltimore
9. http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?issueID=42&sectionID=4&articleID=542Ibid.
10. http://baltimore.org/multicultural/black-history
11. http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?issueID=42&sectionID=4&articleID=542
12. Ibid.
13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Police_Department
14. http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?issueID=42&sectionID=4&articleID=542
15. http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Baltimore&state=MD
16. “Highest and Lowest Elevations in Maryland’s Counties”. Maryland Geological Survey. http://www.mgs.md.gov/esic/fs/fs1.html.
17. ibid
18. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Baltimore_neighborhoods
19. ibid
20. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Inner_Harbor
21. ibid
22. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Park,_Baltimore
23. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_Hill,_Baltimore
24. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_State
25. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore,_Maryland
26. ibid
26½. Dechter, Gadi.  “Wish You Weren’t Here: A Guided Tour of The Wire’s East Baltimore.”  Baltimore City Paper, 24 May 2006.
27. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=05000US24510&-qr_name=ACS_2007_3YR_G00_S1702&-ds_name=ACS_2007_3YR_G00_&-redoLog=false
27½. http://www.dllr.state.md.us/lmi/laus/baltimorecity.shtml
28. “Community Statistical Area Profile: Baltimore City”  Baltimore Neighborhood Indicator’s Alliance.
29. ”Major Embloyers in Baltimore City, Maryland” Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, October 2006.  www.choosemaryland.org/Resources/pdffiles/Majoremployersbycounty/baltimorecityME2006.pdf
30.  “Baltimore City Economic Strategy: Building on Strength.”  http://www.baltimorecity.gov/images/EconGrowthStrategy.pdf
31. “Community Statistical Area Profile: Baltimore City”  Baltimore Neighborhood Indicator’s Alliance. http://www.ubalt.edu/bnia/indicators/statistical_profiles.html
32. housing authority website
33. ibid
34. ibid
35.  Belfoure, Charles.  “In Baltimore, Public housing Comes Full Circle.”  The New York Times, 19 March 2000. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/19/realestate/in-baltimore-public-housing-comes-full-circle.html
36. ibid
37. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOPE_VI#cite_note-nlihc-4
38. ibid
39. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-te.md.hermann17dec17,0,699173.story
40. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-bust0220,0,831554.story
41. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Norris and http://www.sptimes.com/2005/05/01/Floridian/A_crooked_path.shtml
42. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Dixon