Even in times when many residents of our city have closed their eyes and ears to injustice, the people in this room have not hesitated to raise their voices on behalf of others who cannot do so. Every day of your 41-year history, you have created and enforced our city's standards for justice in housing. Well, Baltimore has endured the bad. We have seen crime skyrocket, claiming more than 300 lives annually - including 34 children last year. Foremost among the ties that bind our city, is an unquenched thirst for justice.
Justice is simply truth in action.
And action has characterized the history of this organization. It must also characterize your future if our city is to capitalize on the optimism and hope I have seen in the months since being elected mayor. I think we have survived the bad, and, together, we will live to see the good. If this new hope is to be translated into concrete improvement, Baltimore's neighborhood leaders have a right to expect that city government will be a reliable partner - one that will follow through on what it says it will do, and will support, not fight, grassroots efforts to make neighborhoods better. Members of our community must know their actions will be encouraged, or, eventually, all but the most stubborn will stop trying, or possibly move away.