What was behind the dramatic action of Baltimore high-school students who besieged the detention center?
The Baltimore Algebra Project called this action. The group is a peer-to-peer tutoring organization with a political component. It promotes the interest of students and young people, like fighting school closings and for funding for student and youth jobs. I had attended a meeting where BAP planned to demand the government take the funds they use to lock people up and use it for jobs. We gave out flyers for March 4. They invited me to meet with them and I did, along with a Workers World Party comrade from Baltimore, Stephen Ceci. They were pushing a national student bill of rights. A week after we met, they told me they would organize a meeting in front of the Juvenile Detention Center, demanding $100 million to create jobs for young people. A thousand mainly high-school youths marched on the center; 13 pushed inside and occupied the building. There were no arrests. The youths made their point in this courageous and militant way for jobs, not jails. This struggle had opened up in Calif
