Baltimore City Councilman Mark Conway launched a challenge to longtime U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume on a corner known as the heart of the city’s opioid crisis and the focal point of the uprising in 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray.

The Democrat, the council’s public safety chair, held his event outside the Penn North public transit station. In recent months, the site has seen a spate of mass overdoses.

The city’s opioid crisis was symbolic of everything that is wrong with stagnant establishment politics, Conway said.

“Addiction is a disease of despair,” he said. “And the roots of that despair run deep through each and every one of the broken promises of our politics.”

Those tentacles reach into every aspect of city life, he said, such as schools failing to teach children, climbing utility costs and meager wages unable to match the skyrocketing costs of housing. Penn North doesn’t sow this despair but reaps the harvest.

Conway’s lofty and ambitious speech called on leaders with new ideas and energy to demand justice, affordability, and safety and dignity for Baltimore.

“I didn’t come into public service to manage decline,” he said. “I came here to fix what is broken, not to make excuses for why it stays the same.”

Mfume said he is running for reelection and “with God’s blessing” he intends to win.

“I am a fighter for the people,” he said. “And this is one more fight to win.”

At Conway’s announcement, travelers spilled out of the public transit system elevator, stepped away from a packed bus shelter and rolled up in wheelchairs and walkers to listen to his plans. They had questions and requests for help that he calmly answered as he handed out business cards.

One of the listeners was Jewell Battle. The 22-year-old was pushing a double stroller, holding her two babies, ages 14 months and 4 months. She told Conway she was homeless, had not had breakfast and was having trouble getting help from city resources. Her hotel allowance, paid for by a local nonprofit, would run out Thursday.

Baltimorean Delores St. Clair asked Conway to please help the unhoused of Penn North find a place to live. It seemed to her like there were more people experiencing homelessness this year, she said.

Joe White called out from behind the cameras that Baltimore needs Conway to pay attention to Baltimore, not D.C.

“We need you here. We don’t need you over there,” the 60-year-old Baltimore resident said, suggesting Conway should not run for Congress. “They don’t know you over there. We know you here, at this small spot right here.”

His decision to jump in the race was not a review of Mfume’s job performance, Conway said. He holds Mfume among his most-admired politicians.

Democrats don’t control any branch of government, he said because they “don’t inspire people” and solve their problems.

“Until we actually address those issues and look them dead in the face, like I’m doing today here right now, we’re never going to get that,” Conway said.

Conway has held the District 4 seat since 2020, which includes neighborhoods such as Bellona-Gittings, Govans, Pen Lucy and Ramblewood, on a City Council dominated by Democrats.

Conway won the 2020 primary by less than 2 percentage points and didn’t face a challenger in the last election.

He said he has found himself “limited” in his elected council role and wants to assert his influence from Congress.

Mfume, 76, has held Maryland’s 7th District since 2020, when he won a special election to replace Rep. Elijah Cummings, who died in 2019. Mfume previously represented the district in the House from 1987 to 1996, when he stepped down to run the NAACP.

Mfume has swept elections for years, winning 88% of voters in 2024.

The district includes most of Baltimore and parts of Baltimore County.