Summary: In mid-century Baltimore, aspiring black entrepreneurs had a hard time finding capital to launch businesses. A man known as "Little Willie" Adams used a fortune he'd made running an illegal lottery to fill that gap. Today on the Lines Between Us, University of Maryland law professor Larry Gibson, who handled some of Willie Adams's loans, will tell us Little Willie's story. And Neil Muldrow, chair of the Governor's Commission on Small Business, will tell us what happened when credit began to expand into Baltimore’s black small business community. As part of Lines and the WYPR Maryland Film Festival Spotlight series, we screened the documentary The House I Live In, a documentary exploring how U.S. drug policy affects individuals at each level of the system. After the screening, Tom Hall speaks with special guest Kurt Schmoke, former Baltimore mayor who suggested decriminalizing drugs in 1988. They discuss what's changed--and what hasn't--a quarter century later.
