In a country that prides itself on nurturing diversity, a racial divide still remains between white and black Americans long after the last battle of the Civil War.

The divide is evident in cocked-eyed looks or epithets uttered under a breath. Then there are the cases of outright prejudice like arson fires of churches, flagrant police brutality, and racial profiling.

"You look at the history of the United States and the discrimination and intolerance and you see the same patterns," said author Jerry Wemple. "These patterns seem to repeat themselves."

Wemple notes the accomplishments of community and political leaders in the past decades, but believes that their words need to be more tangible. Americans need to accept each other based on their character and help that philosophy emanate from their neighborhoods to around the world.

In The Civil War in Baltimore, Jerry Wemple explores the sociological and psychological affects of the Civil War through narrative, lyrical poems. His new book includes works that give insight into his personal experiences and how he perceives the nation’s racial divide.

"The Civil War is such an important part of history and the issues that it brought to the forefront were never resolved," he said. "We have this lingering legacy of the war and various interpretations of it."

Wemple grew up in Sunbury, a small town nestled along the Susquehanna River in Northumberland County. In the 1960s, once you traveled off of Main Street, it was primarily country and farmland until you went north to the quiet college town of Bloomsburg. A child of German and African descent might stick out in a place like Sunbury.

The author doesn't describe his childhood as relentless badgering by schoolmates, but he has encountered bigotry throughout his life. After graduation from Shikellamy High School, he spent eight years in the United States Navy where he served as a photo interpreter then worked as a newspaper reporter after discharge. During that time, he has met his share of rude store clerks and bartenders. Even now, Jerry sees racism in the eyes of some of the people he passes on the streets.

His works don't strictly focus on racism, but it's a subject that's hard for him to avoid when writing pieces about his personal experiences.

Baltimore was an appropriate place for the book to be rooted for a couple of reasons. Jerry was intrigued by the city's history before and during the Civil War. The state of Maryland was a northern state filled with contradictions since people from all sides of the slavery spectrum lived there: abolitionists, slave owners, free slaves, and slaves.

"Baltimore was this type of middle ground where anything goes."

The city was also home to his family who migrated to northeastern Pennsylvania where he was raised.

Works from The Civil War in Baltimore (Word Press, 2005), follow the social evolution of free slaves during the 19th century to the state of African-American culture today. Wemple intertwines poems inspired by his own life and the appalling examples of racism that have occurred in his home state.

Jerry Wemple’s first book-length collection, You Can See It From Here (Lotus Press, 2000), won the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. His poems and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications including Ninth Letter, 5 AM, West Branch, Connecticut Review, and The Drexel Online Journal. He was awarded a Fellowship in Literature from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Mabel Woodrow Wilson Award.

Wemple, 45, earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Vermont College and a master’s degree in English from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and taught classes at the University of Pitttsburgh at Johnstown before he returned to his native Bloomsburg where he is an assistant professor of English at Bloomsburg University.