SA CANDIDATE BERNSTEIN VISITS
AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY
Attempts to make inroads
Inside 'Jessamy Country'
By Stephen Janis
On a blustery afternoon Saturday, 18-year-old Kevin Myers sits on a chair outside his Perkins Homes apartment, lost in thought.
Having just finished a conversation with Gregg Bernstein, the upstart candidate for the city’s top prosecutor’s job, Myers drags on a cigarette as he contemplates his discussion about who he would vote for in the upcoming primary.
Bernstein had given his pitch, and Myers was polite and receptive.
But would he, an African-American voter, really consider casting his ballot for a white candidate in a city pundits argued is firmly drawn along racial lines when it comes to choosing elected officials?
“I’m not going to vote for a black candidate just because they're black, or not vote for a white candidate just because they’re white,” he said, bristling at the suggestion that race would factor into his decision.
“That’s the last thing I’m thinking about right now.”
Myers, who recently got a job at Burger King, said that he, like other residents of the city-owned housing project, was concerned about crime, jobs and, of course, something less tangible.
“We need to try a new approach,” he said.
THINGS WEREN'T GETTING BETTER
Cognizant that things weren’t getting better for many of his fellow residents, Myers said he would seriously consider voting for Bernstein, if for no other reason than the feeling that a fresh perspective on the city's intractable problems was long overdue.
“I like his angle on things,” Myers added.
The visit to Perkins Homes Saturday by the candidate posing the first challenge to long-time incumbent Patricia C. Jessamy in her 15-year tenure as the city’s top prosecutor may be the key to his efforts to unseat the personally popular city state's attorney.
Bernstein needs voters like Myers to win, black voters in a city that is majority black.
APPEARS AT POLLING PLACE IN RUNNING CLOTHES
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BALTIMORE POLICE 2ND-IN-COMMAND, 
