Ron Cassie
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author "If You Love Baltimore, It Will Love You Back." Georgetown doc candidate. other bylines at City Lab, Pulitzer Center, Washingtonian, Grist, Newsweek
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Articles by Ron Cassie
Four Key Takeaways from Maryland's Primaries
Several incumbents fell Tuesday, but not Senate President Bill Ferguson, who was challenged by social media influencer Bobby LaPin. Boat captain and social media personality Bobby LaPin made an energetic "everyman" pitch to his followers in an effort to unseat state Senator Bill Ferguson. LaPin's complaints about Baltimore Gas and Electric Company rate increases, for example, found an audience, as his yard signs popped up seemingly everywhere in recent weeks.
June Issue: America at 250
FEATURES Bringing Them Home Photograph of Griner in photo montage by Sputnik via AP Images; Photograph of Warmbier in photo montage by Jon Chol Jin/AP Images. Other photographs in photo montage courtesy of Global Reach. Working outside official diplomatic channels—and in delicate, sometimes dangerous circumstances—Mickey Bergman has made it his life’s work to free people, mostly Americans, who are wrongly held abroad. By Andrew Zaleski.
Tola’s Room Pays Homage to Baltimore’s Puerto Rican Story
—Photography by J.M. Giordano “Both of my parents were eclectic music lovers, but my father really loved all kinds of music, from boleros to all the famous salseros—Willie Colón, Héctor Lavoe, El Gran Combo—to Michael Jackson, Rick Astley, and Hall and Oates,” says Christina Delgado, the founder of Tola’s Room, the northeastern Baltimore rowhouse museum dedicated to her Puerto Rican heritage.
Dreamlander George Figgs, Who Played Jesus in John Waters’ First Talking Feature, Still Loves Movies
“When John asked me to play Jesus, I was taking so much acid at the time, I thought I was Jesus,” George Figgs, with a mischievous grin, tells the audience after a recent Maryland Film Festival showing of Multiple Maniacs, John Waters’ first talking feature. Screened in its original 16mm format, the 1970 black comedy holds up surprisingly well. An irreverent, profane commentary on the hippies vs. straights battles of its day—think Woke Left vs.
Step Into the New Year With These First Day Hikes
First Day Hikes began on a hunch by a Massachusetts park ranger back in 1992 that a New Year’s Day renewal stroll might just draw a few visitors to his park in the winter. Some 380 people showed up at Blue Hills State Reservation for the inaugural First Day Hikes—an annual walk in the woods now held in all 50 states. The First Day Hikes movement reached Maryland on New Year’s Day 2012, with 560 people participating at 17 state parks that winter. It proved to be just the beginning.
Osita Nwanevu’s New Book Makes a Bold Assertion on National Politics
Baltimore-based journalist Osita Nwanevu, a contributing editor at The New Republic and a columnist at The Guardian, has spent the past decade covering national politics. Just 32 years old, his work has always transcended traditional political journalism, combining history, theory, reporting, and analysis to unpack the issues of the day. His first book, The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding, published by Penguin Random House, makes a bold assertion.
Kent County High’s WKHS Radio Has Been Spinning the Hits for More Than 50 Years
Chris Singleton’s career in radio got its accidental start in 1983, during his junior year at Kent County High School. He was in class when the school’s radio station, on air at the time, began having issues with the intercom system between its studios and put out an SOS, asking if anyone in the vo-tech electronics program could come to the rescue. “Today, they call it the ‘Digital Electronics,’ but then they referred to it as Radio and TV Repair.
The BMA’s ‘Turn Again to Earth’ Series Digs Deep Into the Realities of Climate Change
Born in part from the climate-change protests at museums here and abroad, the Baltimore Museum of Art launched an ambitious collection of environmentally driven initiatives in 2024. Taking its title, Turn Again to the Earth, from the writing of environmental activist Rachel Carson, the ongoing series finds it themes in “the realities and repercussions of climate change [that] have become part of our daily discourse and experiences,” as BMA director Asma Naeem explained in announcing the effort.
Norman Morrison’s Self-Immolation Protesting the Vietnam War Shocked America’s Conscience
The Nov. 1, 1965 issue of I.F. Stone’s Weekly, an influential Washington newsletter of the period, carried a story headlined, “A Priest Tells How Our Bombers Razed His Church and Killed His People.” From a Saigon hospital bed, a French priest recounted U.S. planes destroying his Vietnam village in devastating detail. Fleeing with surviving women and children, Father Currien “buried as best I could the bodies of my faithful…seven of them completely torn to bits.
‘Heavy Metal Parking Lot’ Approaches Its 40th Anniversary
“We’re joined at the hip at this point,” says John Heyn, referring to Jeff Krulik, co-director of Heavy Metal Parking Lot, the definitive document of ’80s teen metal culture—big hair, spandex, mullets, V-8 engines, cheap beer, and homegrown weed. Celebrating its 40th anniversary next year and recently screened as part of the Motor House’s “Movie Monday” programming, Heavy Metal Parking Lot’s legion of admirers have included Nirvana, Cameron Crowe, and Sofia Coppola.
Meet Ocean City’s Shark Whisperer
“We had a hammerhead shark on the rod and we’re fighting it, and it’s toward the end of the day and I’m thinking once we get him in, we’re going home,” recalls Capt. Mark Sampson, who has run a charter fishing service out of Ocean City for four decades, of a particularly memorable 2020 boat trip. “And then I look across water on the other side of the boat, and I see this dark shadow and it’s trucking.
Will Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park Become Baltimore City’s First State Park?
“Today, we get a chance to be absolutely still for a half-hour,” meditation leader Maria Broom says softly as she purifies the ritual homa fire offerings—dried cow dung, ghee, herbs—sending up gentle gray smoke from a copper vessel. “We’re going to go inside ourselves.” As an older man in dreadlocks plays a flute, Broom repeats a simple mantra.
Iconic Journalist Murray Kempton Had Baltimore Roots, But He’s Often Forgotten Here
The sheer expanse of Murray Kempton’s career is difficult to wrap one’s head around. A former H.L. Mencken copyboy and Johns Hopkins News-Letter editor-in-chief, he eventually plied his trade as a columnist in New York. Writing from the 1930s through the 1990s, Kempton chronicled Roosevelt and the New Deal, the Big Apple of Trump and Giuliani, and seemingly everything in-between. And now his columns are assembled in a new anthology.
Frederick-Born Designer Claire McCardell Single-Handedly Democratized Women’s Fashion
Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson has established herself as one of this city’s best writers. Crossing genres from narrative nonfiction to cultural criticism, short fiction, and memoir with signature intelligence and grace, her work has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, The Washington Post Magazine, The Southern Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Baltimore magazine, among other publications.
Washingtonian's July Issue: "Best Of" Issue
This page describes the contents of an issue of Washingtonian magazine. Subscribers get exclusive early access through our print and digital editions. Most of our feature stories are later published online and linked below. Buy a Single Issue Subscribe Or Manage My Subscription FEATURES Up All Night When most people are asleep, others are saving lives or serving meals, losing their shirts at roulette or taking or taking them off onstage.
The Original City Fair Helped Baltimore Rebound from the ’68 Riots
The City Fair launched in 1970 on a shoestring budget, run out of a vacant furniture building at Charles and Franklin streets. Office equipment included desks cast off from the school system. Naysayers, including the mayor, thought the whole idea naïve. Who would attend a three-day, county-style fair in downtown Baltimore two years after the ’68 riots? It turned out, 350,000 people that inaugural year. Nearly double the following September. Soon a million visitors.
Photos: Hundreds Protest ICE Raids in Baltimore
Hundreds of Baltimoreans gathered at Casa de Maryland’s Welcome Center on Pulaski Highway for a noon street march through Southeast Baltimore Wednesday to voice opposition and outrage against recent ICE raids in the city.
Historian Martha S. Jones’ New Memoir Traces Five Generations of Her Own Lineage
Johns Hopkins University professor Martha S. Jones is one of the country’s leading historians and public intellectuals. In Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America (2018), she chronicled how free Black residents in Baltimore asserted their citizenship rights, ultimately helping enshrine the principle that all persons born in the United States are citizens.
A White Baltimore Cop Killed a Black Serviceman in 1942. Investigative Files Were Just Released.
Thomas Broadus Jr. never knew his namesake father. He was two years old—the first-born twin of two sets of twins born to Thomas and Estelle Broadus—when his father, a U.S. Army private from Pittsburgh was shot in the back by a white Baltimore police officer in 1942. His mother, distraught by the slaying her entire life, never remarried. She rarely spoke of her husband, who had been stationed in a segregated unit at nearby Fort Meade, Maryland, when he was killed.
MICA Students in Need of Summer Jobs Founded Black Cherry Puppet Theater. It Became a Local Institution
“Before I moved away from Baltimore, I didn’t realize that other cities do not have their own enchanted rowhouses of puppetry,” joked musician Eric Voboril in a short documentary about Hollins Street’s Black Cherry Puppet Theater that came out several years ago.
Former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele Talks Politics and new MSNBC Show
Prior to his current career as an MSNBC political commentor and host, Michael Steele, of course, served as the elected lieutenant governor of Maryland. Following his term in Bob Ehrlich’s administration, Steele took on the high-profile chairmanship of the Republican National Committee from 2009 to 2011. He was the first African American to hold either office. Trained as an attorney, elected politics was actually the Prince George’s County resident’s second career.
Ten Years Ago, Devin Allen’s Baltimore Uprising Photo Made the Cover of ‘Time,’ Launching His Singular Career
The demonstration at City Hall overflowed its expansive grass plaza. Protestors wearing hoodies in honor of Trayvon Martin and carrying signs that read “I Can’t Breathe”—the last words of Eric Garner—stretched to the War Memorial Building. Some of the crowd, which had marched from Gilmor Homes, dispersed after the planned rally. Others headed to Camden Yards.
O’s Crush Sold Out Opening Day, Rip Red Sox 8-5
Other than Terps star Derik Queen firing his ceremonial first pitch over Ryan O’Hearn’s head, Opening Day at Camden Yards could not have gotten off to a better start.
Maryland Day Poll: What Are Marylanders’ Favorite Things About Our State?
On March 25, 1634, English settlers sailing aboard the Ark and the Dove disembarked on what is today St. Clement’s Island in St. Mary’s County, announcing their founding of the Maryland colony. Located off Colton’s Point in the Potomac River, St. Clement’s Island is now a 62-acre park, accessible only by boat, bearing a memorial cross dedicated those roughly 140 settlers.
Presidents Day Protestors Gather at City Hall for Anti-Trump, Anti-Musk Rally
In coordination with similar events across the country, a couple hundred protestors gathered at Baltimore’s City Hall Monday for a Presidents Day rally to voice opposition to the policies of President Donald Trump and the dismantlement of federal government agencies by billionaire Elon Musk. Several other anti-Trump and anti-Musk rallies were held in the state on Monday, including at the Annapolis State House and at city halls in Frederick and Salisbury.
Scenes from Trump’s Inauguration: Supporters and Protestors on Deportation, DEI, and Other Issues
Donald Trump was sworn in as president Monday inside the Capitol Rotunda, returning to the nation’s highest office after defeating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in November. With his inauguration, Trump becomes both the 45th and 47th president, and the second president to serve non-consecutive terms. Grover Cleveland’s two presidential terms from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897 were similarly separated by a four-year gap.
Bill Stevenson, aka “Bill Waverly,” Has Been Inking Baltimoreans For a Quarter Century
Bill Stevenson got his first tattoo in 1985 on Howard Street next to the old Greyhound bus station at a joint called Tattoo Tux, allegedly because of its owner’s sharp wardrobe. There were not a lot of other options in Baltimore in those days. There was Tattoo Charlie’s, a parlor above the Midway Bar on The Block, which had been tattooing hula girls on the biceps of sailors since the 1940s. But the original Charlie had died by the time Stevenson was of legal age.
Alsobrooks Elected MD’s First Black U.S. Senator; Key Baltimore Referendums Split
Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, 53, made history Tuesday night, becoming the first Black U.S. Senator elected from Maryland. Despite unusually high stakes for a Maryland U.S. Senate race—former two-term Republican Governor Larry Hogan posed a viable challenge to the normally dependable Democratic seat—Alsobrooks will become one of just a handful of Black women ever to serve in the Upper Chamber.
Baltimore Voting Guide: What You Need to Know to Cast Your Ballot
The presidential election vote may be a foregone conclusion in Maryland, but there’s still a lot at stake this November—from the future makeup of the Baltimore City Council and the redevelopment of the Inner Harbor to the replacement of Senator Ben Cardin, which could potentially tip the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. In advance of Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 5, we implore you to do as much homework as time permits.
Meet the Baltimore Mother and Daughter-in-Law Who “Make Up” Hollywood
“Authenticity is in the tiniest of details,” says makeup artist Debi Young. “I’d just done Watchman with Jean Smart, where she had played a sharply dressed FBI special agent. And now for Mare of Easttown [the acclaimed HBO series], I wanted to do broken capillaries on her face and give her a little rosacea.
Washingtonian's September Issue: Style Setters
This page describes the contents of an issue of Washingtonian magazine. Subscribers get exclusive early access through our print and digital editions. Most of our feature stories are later published online and linked below. Buy a Single Issue Subscribe Or Manage My Subscription FEATURES Style Setters Our annual look at some of the area’s most fashionable people–including where they like to shop and their favorite style tips. By Amy Moeller.
The Sunday Long Read: Burrito Bowls, Art Rescues, Cold Cases
Enjoy, Don and Jacob By Ron Cassie for Baltimore ~20 minutes (save for later) “You’re angry about being screwed by your insurance company? He’s angry, too. More than you, in fact. About everything. He’s going to fight for you, the little guy. They’re urinating on you, and it pisses him off.” > New York: Therapy Daddy > 5280: The Charming, Eccentric, Blessed Life of Lee Maxwell Don Van Natta Jr. is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at ESPN, which he joined in 2012.
Moore Announces Revived Red Line Will Move By Light Rail
One year ago, at the West Baltimore MARC Station, then-new Governor Wes Moore announced his intention to revive planning for the east-west transit line that had been abruptly cancelled eight years prior by former Governor Larry Hogan. At the time of Moore’s pledge, two big questions remained unanswered, however.
Scott Defeats Dixon Handily; Cohen and Alsobrooks Win Big in Key Primary Contests
Incumbent Mayor Brandon Scott defeated Sheila Dixon, the former mayor who was forced to resign in scandal, in surprisingly convincing fashion Tuesday night in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary—all but ensuring a second term for the 40-year-old Scott. Four years ago, Scott, then city council president, defeated Dixon by just two percentage points (29.6 percent to 27.5 percent) in a crowded race that took the better part of a week to tally amid COVID-19 mail-in balloting.
O’s Name Press Box After Dean of Baltimore Baseball Writers (Published April 2024)
Jim Henneman’s history with the Orioles goes way back. The first O’s game he attended was the team’s first-ever home game at Memorial Stadium on April 15, 1954. He was a high school pitcher at Calvert Hall at the time, and his biggest dream was that Baltimore would get a big-league club again. To this day, he calls that Opening Day the biggest baseball thrill of his life.
Former Afghan Refugee Set to Graduate from the University of Baltimore School of Law
Welcome to NewsBreak, an open platform where diverse perspectives converge. Most of our content comes from established publications and journalists, as well as from our extensive network of tens of thousands of creators who contribute to our platform. We empower individuals to share insightful viewpoints through short posts and comments.
From Rutgers Student Radio to the Front Row of History
Mike Emanuel’s cell phone can ring any time night or day with an urgent request—much as it did late on Sunday, May 1, 2011. “I was at home watching a hockey game when I got the call saying President Obama was going to speak at 11 o’clock that night—Bin Laden had been killed,” Emanuel RC’90 says. “I ran upstairs and put my suit back on.
Pre-Civil War, Maryland Funded a Colony in Liberia to “Resettle” Free African Americans
The American Colonization Society’s Warehouse in Monrovia, Liberia, c. 1860s. —Courtesy of the Maryland Center for History and Culture, PP161.I.24 Stephen Allen Benson was six years old when he emigrated to West Africa. Born on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in 1816, he sailed from Baltimore on a brig named Strong with his free-born African-American parents and four older and two younger siblings.
Orioles Sold for Reported $1.725 Billion
City College High School graduate David Rubenstein has reached an agreement to purchase the Baltimore Orioles for $1.725 billion, multiple news outlets reported Tuesday night. Rubenstein’s bid to buy the team was initially reported by Bloomberg in early December, but that news was subsequently dismissed by O’s chairman John Angelos. Angelos’ father, Peter, who has been in failing health for several years, bought the Orioles along with a group of investors for $173 million in 1993.
Former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby Found Guilty on Two Counts of Perjury
After roughly six hours of deliberation, a federal jury in Greenbelt returned two guilty verdicts in the perjury trial of former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby Thursday afternoon. Following three days of testimony this week, the first of two long-anticipated trials concluded with closing arguments Wednesday after Mosby decided not to take the stand in her defense.
Bird’s Eye View: Orioles Drop Second Straight Game to Rangers
Why can’t we have nice things? Well, because of turnovers and walks. It was a rough Sunday for Baltimore sports fans. First, the Ravens lose a game they were winning against the Steelers, and then the Orioles drop a second straight ALDS playoff game to the Rangers, this time, 11-8, and are suddenly on the verge of elimination.
Bird’s Eye View: Five Quick Takes from Orioles’ Playoff Opening Loss
There was a lot of emotion in the ballpark at Camden Yards Saturday afternoon. At times—with the sold-out, boisterous Baltimore crowd on its feet, hanging on every pitch, waving orange towels, and chanting, “Let’s go, O’s!”—it felt like Baltimore fans were trying to will just one more come-from-behind victory from the team that finished tied for the most come-from-behind wins in baseball this year.
Family, Teammates, Fans, and Current Orioles Remember Brooks Robinson
Several hundred Baltimore Orioles and Brooks Robinson fans turned out for the team’s public memorial for the Hall of Famer Monday morning at Camden Yards—with the ceremony fittingly held on the field near third base. Robinson, known as “Mr. Oriole,” was 86 when he passed away September 26.
Then & Now: How Do the 2023 Orioles Compare to the ’83 Championship Team?
It’s been 40 years since our beloved Orioles last played in the World Series. But unless you’re a Baltimorean solidly into middle age, you wouldn’t really remember the ’83 club—a mix of veterans and some young stars, namely a couple of fellows named Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray—or the massive championship parade that followed the five-game Series win in Philadelphia.
‘The Body Politic’ Follows Brandon Scott as He Tackles Baltimore’s Gun Violence Epidemic
No one needs a reminder that gun violence in Baltimore has been at epidemic levels for decades. The homicide rate, which quadrupled the national average some 40 years ago, has only spiraled from there—spiking in the 1990s, and again 2015—and remains at or near the highest rate in the U.S. ever since.
The Gritty History (and Gentrification) of Fells Point
Baltimore City annexed Fells Point some 250 years ago this month, but the waterfront neighborhood has an epic story all its own. By Ron Cassie Opening photo: Thames Street, foot of Broadway, May 1940. —Courtesy of Tony Norris THE OUTBREAK OF WAR IN 1812, a disconcerting letter from Capt. Richard Moon to the Secretary of the Navy was reprinted in The Weekly Register, a Baltimore-based magazine among the most widely read of its era.
Druid Hill Park’s Grove of Remembrance Was Planted by Mothers Who Lost Sons in World War I
The trees were little saplings then. Now, tall and strong, they make up the quiet grove where Baltimoreans will gather at 3 o’clock this afternoon, as they have gathered on every Mother’s Day since 1920, to pay tribute to the living and dead of the nation’s war.” —Mrs. Henry F. Baker, Baltimore Sun, May 8, 1955 Nestled on a hilltop in Druid Hill Park, the Grove of Remembrance, whose century-old pin oak trees now stretch 70 feet, was planted by Gold Star Mothers who had lost sons in World War I.
Photos: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band Rock CFG Bank Arena Opening
Bruce Springsteen brought his E Street Band to Baltimore over the weekend, kicking off the grand opening of the city’s $250 million renovated CFG Bank Arena to an enthusiastic, adoring, sold-out house. With a new, reconfigured stage, the historic arena—originally known as the Civic Center—never sounded better, and it proved a hit in terms of a concert-viewing experience.
Bob Dylan’s “Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” Became a Protest Song of the Civil Rights Era
Fifty-one-year-old Hattie Carroll typically worked as a server and bartender at the Emerson Hotel during special functions such as the annual Spinsters’ Ball, a charity affair benefiting the Baltimore League for Crippled Children and Adults. (The gala’s name was intended as tongue-in-cheek, referring to debutantes who remained unmarried at 25.) On Feb.
Keith Davis Jr. Released; New City State’s Attorney Drops Charges
After a conviction in his fourth murder trial was overturned in February 2020 and Davis was due to be released, the City State’s Attorney’s Office charged Davis with attempted murder related to a prison fistfight that had occurred a full year earlier. In the prison video just outside the cell where the short fight took place, both Davis and the other incarcerated man walked out under their own power.
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