Sitting on the campus of a historically black college in July, Baltimore teen Scott Thompson II was in his comfort zone. In a stroke of luck and good timing, Scott’s mom, Myeisha Thompson, had been able to enroll the 13-year-old in the Maya-Baraka Writers Institute, a five-week intensive summer writing camp hosted by the college for the city’s youth. Infused with the spirit of the Institute’s namesakes—Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka, two socially and racially-conscious black storytellers—Scott set out to write a verse expressing his take on school systems and police departments that only see young, black males as problems.

They asked me to write a poem about revolution, and at first, all that popped in my mind was confusion. But I had to write something so my boss didn’t throw me the deuces.

Inquisitive. Confident. Reflective. Observant. Adjectives used by family members and a former teacher to describe Scott, who is in some ways an anomaly and in others the prototypical teenager: listening to music with earbuds affixed in ears; showing off a new move honed this summer on the basketball court; adjusting to his freshman year at Baltimore’s top-ranked magnet high school, Baltimore City College. In his bedroom sits an Xbox console that’s the casualty of a grueling homework load. His wavy long locs pulled back behind his shoulders, Scott shares his dreams of going to UCLA and becoming an actor, director, or playwright. His devotion to the arts flows naturally from a mom who loves musicals—watching and reciting the songs of The Sound of Music together was a Christmas tradition until Scott outgrew the practice last year—and a dad who loved photography.

Bubble-wrapped, framed pictures of Scott, candid photos capturing the spontaneity of his childhood, fill their new apartment in Mount Washington, a quaint, nature-filled area on the outskirts of Baltimore City. Trips to the Inner Harbor and Baltimore Zoo with his mom are common weekend outings; bike rides with his dad around Druid Hill Park are a fond memory.



In many ways, Scott is a black youth who both lives apart from and among the conditions that have come to define West Baltimore. “If I make it as a big actor, people will know where I came from and will know I’m a black boy from Baltimore,” he said on a recent Saturday afternoon traveling around the city. “I know what’s wrong with my city, but it’s still [mine]. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

Mired in unemployment, poverty, and crime, West Baltimore is a community made famous as the setting for HBO’s The Wire, a drama series that centered on the city’s drug trade. In April the area was again thrust into the national spotlight with the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray. Gray’s death touched off mass protests against police brutality, followed by eruptions of violence with arson and looting. City and state officials declared a state of emergency, imposed a citywide 10 p.m. curfew, and deployed the National Guard to patrol Baltimore streets.