Join the University of Baltimore and the ACLU of Maryland for a conversation with award-winning journalist and author of The Lines Between Us: Two Families and a Quest to Cross Baltimore’s Racial Divide, Lawrence Lanahan.

Lanahan will be joined in discussion with Adria Crutchfield, executive director of the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership; Barbara Samuels, ACLU of Maryland’s former managing attorney for fair housing; and Nicole Smith, Columbia, MD resident and focus of The Lines Between Us. The discussion will be moderated by Roger Hartley, Dean, College of Public Affairs, and will be followed by an audience Q & A. Learn more about the book.

Growing out of his public radio series of the same name, Lanahan’s new book looks at segregation and inequality in the Baltimore region from the Fair Housing Act to the death of Freddie Gray and beyond.

In the book, Lanahan vividly focuses on the lives of real people in order to expose the structures and policies that perpetuate inequality in housing across America. The Lines Between Us speaks deeply to our current moment — about who gets to live where and how we can live justly together.

Lanahan wrapped The Lines Between Us around the story of Thompson v. HUD, a landmark civil rights case over public housing segregation whose remedy opened thousands of living opportunities outside the city for Baltimore public housing residents. The case turns 25 this year, and panelist Barbara Samuels has been lead counsel for the ACLU of Maryland working on the case.

• The event is free and open to the public.
• The virtual event will be hosted on Zoom.
• If you need an accommodation in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (for example: sign language interpreter, etc), please indicate your request on the RSVP form below. We will do our best to secure all requested accommodations.

• Lawrence Lanahan is an award-winning journalist and author whose work has appeared on Colorlines, NPR’s Morning Edition, and Al-Jazeera America, among other outlets. His fifty-episode series for Baltimore’s public radio station WYPR, also called The Lines Between Us, won Columbia University’s duPont Award. A recipient of the Carey Institute’s Logan Nonfiction Fellowship, Lanahan grew up in the Baltimore region and has lived for many years in the city of Baltimore, where he has reported on the dynamics of segregation and racial inequality for more than a decade. Lanahan has master’s degrees in sociology from American University and in journalism from Columbia University.

  - Listen to Lines Between Us Radio Episodes
  - Read the essay entitled “How Do We Get White People Out of Their ‘Racially Concentrated Areas of Affluence’?
  - Read the essay entitled “Under Armour’s Kevin Plank Should Turn Down the Tax Break.”

• Adria Crutchfield is an affordable housing and community development leader with public service experience that spans federal, state, and local government legislative and executive branches. Since February 2019, she has served as the Executive Director of the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership, dedicated to helping families escape poverty through access to high-quality housing in areas with strong schools, low crime, and ample job opportunities. Immediately prior to joining BRHP, Adria served as Chief of Staff at the New York City Department of Buildings where she advised the Commissioner on the administration and execution of agency priorities including organizational restructuring, improving the safety of construction sites, and the Mayor’s goals to develop affordable housing; support small businesses; and build a more sustainable, and equitable City. Adria is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis where she studied architecture and American University where she earned her master’s in public policy. She is a proud alum of Coro Leadership New York.
• Barbara Samuels is the former managing attorney of the ACLU of Maryland’s Housing program. She was the lead ACLU counsel in cases challenging governmental housing policies that foster segregation, including Thompson v. HUD, a landmark public housing desegregation case. She helped found and serves on the Board of Directors of the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership, a non-profit created as part of the Thompson v. HUD remedy to provide housing opportunities in low poverty and racially integrated neighborhoods for more than 4,400 Baltimore City families. She has awards from groups such as the NAACP and the Maryland Legal Services Corporation, and she was named one of Maryland’s “Top 25 Human Rights and Justice Champions” by the Legal Aid Bureau (2011), Before joining the ACLU in 1993, Barbara was a legal services housing attorney in Baltimore at the Legal Aid Bureau and in Southwest Virginia. She received her law degree with honors from George Washington University, and her B.A. from Bucknell University.
• Nicole Smith grew up in a number of locations in Baltimore, including Westport and Murphy Homes public housing developments before her mother purchased a home in the Penn North neighborhood. She attended Baltimore City public schools, graduating from Frederick Douglass High School in 1998 and attended West Virginia State University and Baltimore City Community College. In 2009, Nicole obtained a housing voucher through the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program, launched as a result of the Thompson v. HUD case, and with her eight year old son, moved to Columbia, MD where she continues to live. Since moving to Columbia, Nicole has earned an Associate’s degree from Howard Community College and started a home daycare business. In The Lines Between Us, Nicole and her counterpart, Mark, personify the enormous disparities in access to safe housing, educational opportunities, and decent jobs that persist in the Baltimore region.