The Arabbers of Baltimore

Few American cities, save Baltimore, mix history, art and commerce in such equal measures and invest in what many might call fairly mundane matters so much symbolic importance. Such is certainly the case with Baltimore's arabbers - the mysteriously named horsecart vendors whose trade represents at once the capillaries of the city's complex food distribution system, a generations-old system of informal apprenticeship for young black men in commerce and the streets, and the symbolic reach of a small-town past into Baltimore's big-city present.

There is nothing about he arabbers unique to Baltimore, except the name. And that name summons many of the issues about who they are and what they do that continue to spark debate about their prospects. Historically, there is little information about whether the term 'arab' was used to describe individuals similarly employed in other parts of the U.S., but Baltimore's horsecart vendors have been referred to as 'aras,' 'ay-rabs,' and 'Arrabers' for most of this century.

How did the English slang word for homeless youth come to be applied to black (mostly) Baltimore horsecart vendors? The answer lies in the term's denotation of not the nationality of ethnicity of the people referred to, nor their occupation, but their lack of fixedness. The 19th century English usage of 'arab' was meant to refer to the nomadic character of London street gangs. But the current and widely accepted meaning of 'arab' in Baltimore is both narrow and multilayered. 'Arabbers' are people who 'arab' which means to sell foodstuffs from horse-drawn wagons.

Photographer and author Roland Freeman's 'Arabbers of Baltimore' is both a photographic and literary event. It's as though the arabbers have seen themselves on the pages and spoken.