� Open Society Institute

Open Society Institute Mourns Loss of Baltimore Activist

Date:

June 26, 2009

I’ve been through a lot of institutions where human depravity is probably at its lowest, inside prisons throughout this country. And I believe, in spite of all that, that people are good. The human being is a creature that is transcendent. —Leon Faruq

Leon Faruq, director of Safe Streets for Living Classrooms and a former Open Society Institute Baltimore Community Fellow, died Wednesday. He was 58 and was being treated for kidney disease at Sinai Hospital.

Faruq's personal story was a great inspiration to many. He spent 27 years in prison, where he earned two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree. He became a committed activist working with young men, in particular, believing that a mind-change was instrumental to success.

Read the Baltimore Sun obituary of Faruq.

He will be missed by all who knew him.