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Who Killed Det. Sean Suiter? 232 Days and Counting July 7, 2018 - July 7, 2018, The Afro-American

Volume Volume 127 123 No. No.48 20–22

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‘Bron to L.A. Can the Lakers and LeBron Win Title Together?

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Protestors in Minneapolis march against President Trump’s immigration policy on June 30.

‘People are hearing me but they’re not listening’

Aaron Maybin uses his platform to advocate for better schools

By Lisa Snowden-McCray Special to the AFRO Last week, when primary voting at Patapsco Elementary was moved due to fears that the building was infested with fleas and mice, former NFL linebacker, artist and Baltimore City Schools teacher Aaron Maybin had some thoughts.

“Crazy thing about this story isn’t that they shut down and moved this polling location. It’s the fact that this school has been open all year and nobody cared about the fleas, mice and other issues while our babies were in school,” he wrote on his Twitter account. “Seems like the right time to re-evaluate how we are prioritizing the health, safety, and emotional well being of our youth in the educational system.”

It wasn’t the first time that

he’d voiced concerns about conditions at local schools.

Maybin spent four years in the NFL, playing for both the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets. Now, he’s a teacher at Baltimore’s Matthew A. Henson Elementary, assigned to the school through the youth arts nonprofit Leaders of Tomorrow Youth Center.

He made national news this past winter when he began tweeting about issues with heating at many local schools. A video he posted online of children in his classroom bundled up in coats and hoodies garnered over 160,000 views.

“I started tweeting about the power going in and out, the classrooms being freezing, about every kid not necessarily having coats and jackets, how they are not able

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Meet the AFRO Interns Ty’rique Sims Special to the AFRO

Photo credit

NFL player turned teacher Aaron Maybin poses with his new book Art-Activism.

By Sean Yoes AFRO Baltimore Editor syoes@afro.com

Courtesy Photo

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA.), the legendary Los Angeles Congresswoman has endured criticism within her own Democratic Party for her aggressive stance against the Trump administration.

After Being Unjustly Incarcerated Johnson Walks Free For the First time in 30 Years

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Under Fire, Waters Claps Back at Attacks

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Maxine Waters (D-CA.), the seemingly indomitable political firebrand who represents large swaths of South Central Los Angeles, is now taking fire politically from the Left, as well as the Right. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY.), the Senate Minority Leader recently attacked Waters during a speech on the Senate floor, describing her call for the public harassment of Trump administration officials as `un-American.’ “I strongly disagree with those who advocate harassing folks if they don’t agree with you,” Schumer said. “If you disagree with a politician, organize your fellow citizens to action and vote them out of office. But no one should call for the harassment of political opponents. That’s not right. That’s not American.”

Waters responded to Schumer during a segment on MSNBC’s `AM Joy,’ July 1.

“Leadership like Chuck Schumer will do anything that they think is necessary to protect their leadership,” Waters said. “What I have to do is not focus on them. I’ve got to keep the focus on the children,” Waters added in reference to the nearly 2,000 children that remain separated from their parents because of Trump’s `zero tolerance’ immigration policy.

After White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was

Copyright © 2018 by the Afro-American Company

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The AFRO Newspaper in Baltimore has brought aboard two interns for the summer to help them on their journey towards their careers in journalism. One intern is Matthew Ritchie and the other is me, Ty’rique Sims For intern Matthew Ritchie- journalism wasn’t his first choice but he has developed a feel for it and wants to continue on that path.

“I hope to gain valuable experience in the field of journalism,” said Ritchie

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Photo by Ty’rique Sims

Matthew Ritchie began his internship at the AFRO in June.

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The Afro-American, July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018

WHAT’S TRENDING ON AFRO.COM Man Stabs 9 People at Toddler’s Birthday

By The Associated Press

(Ada County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

Timmy Kinner, 30, is seen in a July 1 booking photo provided by the Ada County Sheriff’s Office. Idaho police have identified Kinner as the suspect in a mass stabbing at a Boise apartment complex on Saturday night.

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A man who had been asked to leave an Idaho apartment complex because of bad behavior returned the next day and stabbed nine people, including six children, at a toddler’s birthday party, police said.

Refugees from Syria, Iraq and Ethiopia were among the injured. Boise Police Chief William Bones said Sunday that while the suspect is an American, investigators have not found any evidence that would indicate the attack was a hate crime. Still, Bones said, it is one of several possibilities that remain under investigation.

Timmy Kinner showed up late Saturday at the complex, which houses many resettled refugee families in Boise.

Kinner, who is not a refugee, targeted the party that was held a few doors down from the apartment where he had stayed for a short time, police said.

“This incident is not a representation of our community but a single evil individual who attacked people without provocation that we are aware of at this time,” Police Chief William Bones said Sunday.

The victims included the 3-year-old birthday girl and five other children ages 4 to 12. Three adults who came to their defense were also hurt. Some were gravely wounded, Bones said.

A resident of the complex had recently met Kinner, who was new to the area and needed a place to stay, Bones said.

“I believe her perception was, ‘Here’s a helping hand I can give in return for a helping hand I have been given,’” Bones said.

The resident asked Kinner to leave Friday when his behavior became a problem, and he did so peacefully, Bones said. The police chief did not elaborate on his behavior. The woman was not among the victims.

Esrom Habte, 12, and Fathi Mahamoud, 11, were playing in the grass behind their apartment when the attack began.

They saw the suspect chasing people.

“We saw him saying, like, bad words and stabbing a kid and a grown-up and really hard and a lot of times,” Esrom said.

The two ran into an apartment and hid in a closet with other children until police told them it was safe to come out, he said.

“I saw the police cleaning stuff, and then I came outside,” Fathi said. He said the stabbing victims included three families, all of them friends.

Kinner, 30, was arrested near the scene and charged with aggravated battery and of injury to a child. Investigators recovered the knife he was believed to have used in a nearby canal, Bones said.

The attack resulted in the most victims in a single incident in Boise Police Department history, the police chief said.

“The crime scene, the faces of the parents struggling, the tears coming down their faces, the faces of the children in their hospital beds will be something that I carry with me for the rest of my life, as will every first responder that night,” he said.

The apartment complex is just off of one of Boise’s busier streets, separated from the traffic by one of the many irrigation canals that run through the city. On Sunday, colorful bouquets had been placed just outside crime-scene tape.

Residents of the apartments and the rest of the community were “reeling” from the violence, Bones said, and will need long-term community support.

“This isn’t something that gets over in the days or weeks that follow. ... The level of the some of the injuries will be life-altering in a very negative way,” Bones said.

Mayor Dave Bieter condemned the stabbings on Twitter.

“Last night’s horrific attack does not represent Boise,” Bieter wrote. “Please join me in praying for the injured and their families. We must come together to condemn this vile act.”

Megan Schwab, who works with the International Rescue Committee in Boise, said the organization was working to provide temporary housing, counseling and other support to those affected by the attack.

For some of the refugees living at the complex, the attack revived traumatic memories of the war and violence they had fled. The blood from the stabbings reminded residents Ibod Hasn and Thado Aip of the terror they left in Somalia, they said on Sunday.

Aip’s son, Fathi Mahamoud, stayed close by her side Sunday, at times sitting on the grass to lean against her legs as he watched the police at the crime scene.

Civil Rights Group Wants Supreme Court Vote Postponed

By The Associated Press

(Twitter Photos)

Vanita Gupta (l), head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; and Sherrilyn Ifill (r), of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. .

Various civil rights groups are backing calls from Democratic lawmakers to hold off on a vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s replacement until after the November elections.

Vanita Gupta, head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, says senators need to put country over party and use every tool to stop what she calls President Donald Trump’s plan “to take over the Supreme Court for the next 40 years.”

Despite the Republican majority, Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund says she’s confident senators can be persuaded to hold off.

In 2016, Senate Republicans refused to consider thenPresident Barack Obama’s court nominee, Merrick Garland, during the election year, leaving the seat vacant for Trump’s nominee of Neil Gorsuch in 2017. At the time, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said he had blocked Garland’s nomination on grounds 2016 was a presidential election year, and the new president should have the opportunity to pick a justice.

Given that precedent, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says it would be the “height of hypocrisy” for the Senate now to vote on a new Supreme Court justice before the November midterm elections.

Schumer said June 27 the opening on the court from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement is “the most important Supreme Court” vacancy in at least a generation.

He said the voices of millions of Americans heading to the polls this fall “deserve to be heard.” The court’s make up will determine important issues, including reproductive rights.

Sammy Sosa Says He Uses Lotion to Look Younger, Not Lighter By:Perry Green

AFRO Sports Editor

Former Baseball star Sammy Sosa recently explained his reasoning for bleaching his skin during an E60 interview.

When asked how he felt about people criticizing him for lightening his skin, the 49-year-old Dominican native said he uses a special lotion on his skin not to look lighter, but to look clean and younger.

“It’s just a little lotion I put on my face, but it’s not like that—oh my God,” Sosa said during the E60 interview. “I like to put it on because I like to have my skin clean.

“If the people are mad at me [for lightening my skin complexion], I’m sorry. I don’t do it because of [that]. I don’t have that intention. I do it because, hey, look, I want to be 50 but I look 17, and that’s why I do it. It’s as simple as that,” Sosa continued.

When the E60 interviewer challenged Sosa’s claim that he looks 17 years old, Sosa laughed and said, “OK, maybe I look 35, but that’s why I do it.”

But Sosa’s claim that he uses the lotion only to appear younger, not lighter, conflicts with what he told the media nearly a decade ago when people first began to notice his skin was getting lighter. Sosa had admitted in a 2009 interview with Univision’s Primer Impacto, that he was using a bleaching cream and was fully aware that it whitened his skin.

“It’s a bleaching cream that I apply before going to bed and whitens my skin some” Sosa said in an old Univision interview.

“It’s a cream that I have, that I use to soften [my skin], but has bleached me some. I’m not a racist; I live my life happily.”

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The Afro-American, July 7, 2018 - July 7, 2018

July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018, The Afro-American

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Protestors Flood U.S. Cities to Fight Trump Immigration Policy

By The Associated Press They wore white. They shook their fists in the air. They carried signs reading: “No more children in cages,” and “What’s next?

Concentration Camps?”

In major cities and tiny towns, hundreds of thousands of marchers gathered June 30 across America, moved by accounts of children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, in the latest act of mass resistance against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Protesters flooded more than 700 marches, from immigrant-friendly cities like New York and Los Angeles to conservative Appalachia and Wyoming. They gathered on the front lawn of a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Texas, near a detention center where migrant children were being held in cages, and on a street corner near Trump’s golf resort at Bedminster, N.J., where the president is spending the weekend.

Trump has backed away from family separations amid bipartisan and international uproar. His “zero tolerance policy” led officials to take more than 2,000 children from their parents as they tried to enter the country illegally, most of them fleeing violence, persecution or economic collapse in their home countries.

Those marching Saturday demanded the government quickly reunite the families that were already divided.

A Brazilian mother separated from her 10-year-old son more

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Belinda Brown-Payne, from Silver Spring, Md., reacts to speakers during a protest of the Trump administration’s approach to illegal border crossings and separation of children from immigrant parents in Lafayette Square across from the White House on June 30 in Washington. than a month ago approached the microphone at the Boston rally.

“We came to the United States seeking help, and we never imagined that this could happen.

So I beg everyone, please release these children, give my son back to me,” she said through an interpreter, weeping. “Please fight and continue

fighting, because we will win.”

The crowd erupted.

In Washington, D.C., an estimated 30,000 marchers gathered in Lafayette Park across from the White House in what was expected to be the largest protest of the day, stretching for hours under a searing sun. Firefighters at one point misted

the crowd to help people cool off.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the musical “Hamilton,” sang a lullaby dedicated to parents unable to sing to their children. Singersongwriter Alicia Keys read a letter written by a woman whose child had been taken away from her at the border.

“It’s upsetting. Families being separated, children in cages,” said Emilia Ramos, a cleaner in the district, fighting tears at the rally.

“Seeing everyone together for this cause, it’s emotional.”

Around her, thousands waved signs: “I care,” some read, referencing a jacket that first lady Melania Trump wore when traveling to visit child migrants. The back of her jacket said, “I really don’t care, do U?” and it became a rallying cry for protesters Saturday.

“I care!! Do you?” read Joan Culwell’s T-shirt as she joined a rally in Denver.

“We care!” marchers shouted outside Dallas City Hall. Organizer Michelle Wentz says opposition to the Trump administration’s “barbaric and inhumane” policy has seemed to transcend political lines.

“This is the issue crossing the line for a lot of people,” said Robin Jackson, 51, of Los Angeles, who protested with thousands carrying flags, signs and babies.

Singer John Legend serenaded the crowd and Democratic politicians who have clashed with Trump had strong words for the president, including U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters who called for his impeachment.

The president took to Twitter amid the protests, first to show his support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement as some Democrats called for major changes to the agency. Tweeting Saturday from New Jersey, Trump urged ICE agents to “not worry or lose your spirit” and wrote that “the radical left Dems want you out. Next it will be all police.”

He later tweeted that he never pushed House Republicans to vote for immigration overhaul measures that failed last week, contradicting a post three days ago in which he urged GOP congressional members to pass them.

Marchers took to city parks and downtown squares from Maine to Florida to Oregon; in Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico; on the international bridge between El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico; even in Antler, North Dakota, population 27. People braved the heat in Chicago and Atlanta to march.

In rural Marshalltown, Iowa, about 125 people gathered for a march organized by Steve Adelmund, a father of two who was inspired after turning on the news on Father’s Day and seeing children being separated from their families and held in cages.

“It hit me in the heart. I cried,” he said.

“If we can’t come together under the idea of ‘Kids shouldn’t be taken from their parents,’ where are we?” he asked. “We have to speak out now while we can, before we can’t.”

Maybin

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to keep warm,” he remembers.

Maybin says both politicians and citizens wanted to point fingers instead of solving the problem. Some blamed the mayor, some blamed the governor, some blamed the City Council – but he wanted action.

“People are hearing me but they’re not listening, he says. “So I said, ‘there is no way that these people, even as ignorant as they may be, could actually see what my kids are going through right now. See how they are feeling, hear their voices as they’re telling me how freezing they are, some of them telling me that they thought they had frostbite. How they couldn’t feel their hands or their toes.

There’s no way they could actually see that and still be talking in that way.’”

He and two students at Morgan State University started a GoFundMe campaign aimed at raising money for space heaters

Waters

and outerwear for the kids. They were able to raise over $80,000 and used the money to buy outerwear, space heaters, feminine care products, and more for kids at over 50 schools in the city.

Despite its success, Maybin shrugs off

them by some generous folks that I was able to partner up with…but on a large scale we’re talking about the equivalent of a ripple. We’re not even talking about a huge wave that will ultimately end up making our environment for our kids safer.”

the schools,” he told the AFRO. “Ultimately I want to be in charge of making sure that arts and arts therapy and arts enrichment is a part of every school curriculum in Baltimore and I want to be a big part of determining what curriculum looks like.”

He says that when kids know that someone cares, and that person is invested in meeting them where they are, the results –Aaron Maybin are immeasurable.

“When a kid actually can tell that a person is trying to reach them, that a person is Maybin published a book called Art trying to do what they can to meet them Activism last year, which features his art, where they are and not chastise them or make photography, and poetry. Now that school is them feel inferior because they don’t learn out, he’s working to promote it, along with necessarily the same way I think that there a coloring book that he recently completed. is no amount of value that you can put on That’s in addition to his work with various that because you’re talking about something summer camps and youth programs around that will make an entire city of kids not the city. just critical thinkers but elevators, change “I don’t see myself ever not involved in makers.”

“I don’t see myself ever not involved in the schools.” congratulations for the campaign.

“It’s cool but I don’t like when people make it seem like it’s a bigger deal than what it really is,” he says. “Most of the schools, once the winter left and the summer came, were 90 degree classrooms instead of 30 degree classrooms. My school has gotten a new heating system offered to

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asked to leave a Virginia restaurant last month because of her allegiance to Trump, according to a report in RT News, Waters told supporters “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

It seemed predictable Trump would lie and twist Waters’ words to claim she called for violence against his supporters.

In a tweet, Trump also worked in a thinly veiled racist dig against Waters, one he has utilized many times against the enerable Congresswoman, and issued a warning to Waters.

“Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the face of the Democratic Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!” Waters isn’t backing down.

According to a report in The Hill, during an immigration rally over the weekend Waters said,“I know that there are those who are talking about censuring me, talking about kicking me out of Congress, talking about shooting me, talking about hanging me,” Waters told the crowd in Los Angeles. “All I have to say is this: If you shoot me you better shoot straight. There’s nothing like a wounded animal.”

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Intern

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about interning at the AFRO. “There is no support system for journalism at Johns Hopkins besides the actual newsletter at the school. So I’m looking to get guidance and real experience in journalism.”

Ritchie, 19, is an English and Psychology double major at Johns Hopkins University from Ashburn, Virginia. Ritchie was an Environmental Engineering major, but quickly switched when he realized he did not want to do chemistry and physics for a living.

Ritchie had long considered the scientific field since he started at his magnet high school, in Ashburn.

“I was looking at the STEM fields,” said Ritchie. “When I came to school

[Hopkins], I started writing for the sports section of the newsletter. That was when I realized that I wanted to pursue journalism.”

Ritchie’s dream now is to be a journalist at ESPN. He has grown up with the love for sports that has carried him as an athlete and translated to writing. He credits Bomani Jones, a well-known radio personality at ESPN and Kevin Blackistone, a sports journalist and professor at the school of journalism at the University of Maryland as his influences.

While Ritchie knows journalism can be difficult at times there are also many things he enjoys about it.

“I enjoy the process of finding a story and being about to translate it to

a larger audience. People look for the news and being able to provide it for them is satisfying,” said Ritchie.

As the journalism industry ushers in a new generation of journalists, the field has gone through many changes over the years. The media has been under fire during Donald Trump’s presidency, minus Fox News and most recently Sinclair Broadcasting Group. Trump has made no secret of his animus for any press that is not friendly to him.

“I think journalism is sort of in danger as a whole. There is a movement of distrust towards the media, which is threatening the industry in my opinion.

It is important for journalism to continue to grow and stay strong,” said Ritchie.

The Morgan State University Class of 1969 is attempting to locate classmates in preparation of its May 2019-50th Anniversary celebration.

Please visit www.morganstate1969.org or contact Jesse Bennett 443 286-5355 for details.

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Justice Roberts May Hold Key Vote as Supreme Court Moves Right Care Act in 2012. Trump has not publicly criticized Roberts since he’s been president.

The case arose in the middle of the 2012 presidential campaign, in which Barack Obama was seeking re-election and the health care law also known as “Obamacare”

By Mark Sherman, The Associated Press Chief Justice John Roberts is the Supreme Court’s new man in the middle. It’s just that the middle may have moved well to the right.

The retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy means Roberts probably will be the conservative justice closest to the court’s four liberals, allowing him to control where the panel comes down in some of its most contentious cases.

Roberts will be the justice who determines “how far they go and how fast they go,” said Washington lawyer John Elwood.

Kennedy played a similar role for many years — his votes on gay rights, abortion, the death penalty, the environment, voting rights and affirmative action basically determined the outcome of cases on which the court was divided between liberals and conservatives.

Roberts has typically been to Kennedy’s right. He did not endorse a constitutional right to marry for same-sex couples. He dissented when the court struck down Texas abortion clinic restrictions in 2016. The chief justice also was in dissent from the court’s first major climate change decision in 2007, when it held that the Environmental Protection Agency could regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as air pollutants.

New cases on any of those issues could be before the court soon and, even if Roberts is not prepared to overrule major Supreme Court precedents, he could be in position to cut back on environmental protections as well as gay rights and abortion rights.

Smaller steps might be in keeping with Roberts’ preference for avoiding major divides where possible, and attracting votes from both conservatives and liberals. The 63-yearold chief justice may be in no hurry to move quickly, as he could be on the bench another 15 to 20 years.

“Chief Justice Roberts, more than any other justice on the court, believes in narrow rulings that attract broad majorities, answering no more than necessary to resolve a given case,” Jonathan Adler, a professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, wrote on the Volokh Conspiracy legal blog.

In one sense, the Supreme Court’s

“He’s conservative, but he is an institutionalist.

He believes deeply in the Supreme Court.”

–Jonathan Turley

Win McNamee/Pool via AP

In this Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018 file photo, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts listens as President Donald Trump delivers his first State of the Union address in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to a joint session of Congress in Washington. The retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy means that the conservative Roberts probably will be the justice closest to the court’s four liberals, allowing Roberts to control where the court comes down in some of its most contentious cases. immediate future could look a lot like the term that just ended. Roberts seemed firmly in control of a court that overwhelmingly went conservative in divided cases, including upholding President Donald Trump’s travel ban, striking a blow at public-sector labor unions, limiting workers’ rights to band together to complain about pay and affirming Ohio’s aggressive efforts to purge its voting rolls.

Only on one occasion did Roberts join with the liberal justices in a 5-4 decision, a ruling that said police generally must have warrants to get telecommunications companies’ records showing where people have used their cellphones.

Twice, though, Roberts was among a

larger grouping of justices in cases that skirted the big issue at stake, but that could return to the court. In one case, the justices rejected a lower-court ruling that set limits on redistricting for partisan gain, but without deciding whether limits ever could be imposed. In another, the court ruled in favor of a baker who would not create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, yet left on the table the question of whether religious objections could be used to avoid complying with antidiscrimination laws that protect LGBT people.

For all his votes on the conservative side of issues, Roberts has had his critics on the right. They include Trump, who once labeled Roberts “an absolute disaster” for the chief justice’s critical vote to uphold the Affordable

was a major issue. Then, as now, the five conservatives were nominees of Republican presidents, while the four liberals were chosen

by Democrats.

In the end, Roberts sided with the liberals, a decision some court observers have attributed in part to concern about public perceptions of the court and the chief justice’s desire to be seen as above the political fray.

“He’s conservative, but he is an institutionalist. He believes deeply in the Supreme Court,” said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley.

A test of Roberts’ ability to set the court’s agenda could come on the topic of guns, said UCLA law professor Adam Winkler.

Roberts voted in favor of gun rights in two cases that held that Americans have the right to have guns, at least for self-defense in their homes. But the court has since rejected repeated attempts to expand on the right of gun ownership, in part because Roberts and Kennedy would not join the other conservative justices to take on a new case.

It takes the votes of four justices for the court to agree to review a case. If Kennedy’s replacement is a fourth vote for a new case about guns, then Roberts might soon have to weigh in on issues like the right carry a concealed firearm in public or bans on assault weapons, Winkler said.

July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018, The Afro-American

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COMMENTARY

Honor the fallen by doing our job

During the American Revolution community newspapers, in the embryonic country, bound citizens together with provocative editorials and news of the day as citizens rose up to break free of the tyranny of a King. Many newspapers published the Declaration of Independence and helped to popularize the founding principles of our nascent country.

The Tories saw the news as divisive and slanted.

The Patriots proclaimed freedom of speech against despotic rule.

During the Civil War community newspapers in a divisive country kept track of the dead, the battles and helped inform citizens with editorials and news often seen as opinionated and slanted.

During the Vietnam War community newspapers told of boys going to war and men coming home broken or in coffins. The nation fought over the value of the news. Some considered it anti-establishment.

Some saw it as grassroots reporting.

Throughout our history community newspapers have been the backbone of journalism and a cornerstone to our republic even as some have assailed the reporting.

Sewer rates. PTA meetings. High School and community sports. Pictures of our kids playing those sports. County Fairs. State Legislatures. County Councils. Infrastructure. Taxes. All of those stories and more adorn the pages of your typical community newspaper as do the public notices letting you know when and where there is a government meeting to attend.

What proud parent, upon seeing their progeny on the page of a newspaper hasn’t cut that picture out and hung that photo with a magnet on a refrigerator or put it away in a photo album?

This work is brought to you by civic-minded individuals who toil away for longer and for far less money than their television reporting cousins.

As first television and then the Internet have inundated the consumer news market, the community newspaper has chugged along – adapting to the computer age while doing the job with fewer people and less money as advertisers have steadily abandoned these newspapers for online click-bait.

Though squeezed hard by market forces, the backbone still survives.

Thursday five people in Annapolis, working for the Capital Gazette, one of Maryland’s oldest and most venerated community newspapers, unwantedly gave the last full measure of their life trying to do their jobs.

Rebecca Smith worked to bring advertising and money into the paper. Wendi Winters, Robert Hiaasen, John McNamara and Gerald Fischman were senior members of the staff who wrote, edited, mentored young talent and, like everyone else involved in community newspapers, served any number of functions to help produce a newspaper to better inform members of their own community. They did not take this job lightly.

They did not ask for accolades. They did their job. They are you and me. They were.

A disgruntled and apparently mentally troubled reader targeted the editors to die for perceived slights.

Each day community newspapers deal with those who don’t like coverage, or are upset with aspects often minor about the details of a story that has been reported.

All of this is part of the editorial process. Editors have to decide whether or not to issue corrections and sometimes they explain the editorial process to those who will listen. They are responsible to their conscience, their readers and the owners to keep things as accurate as possible and present the most accurate version of the story available by deadline. It is a universal mantra in community journalism.

Though questions always rise as to the veracity of the news reported in our community newspapers, the extreme arguments of bias raised at the national level have for the most part not touched this world.

This is because most of the reporters and editors not only work in the community but live in the community. They raise their children there. They shop, go to school, church and dine out in the same community they cover for their newspapers.

The high school coach knows them. The local council members have all seen the reporters toiling away long into the night at the same meetings in which the council members are trapped. Those reporters have eaten the same questionable finger foods at local political events as everyone else and washed it down with the same flat soda.

There used to be fewer cries of “Fake Media” or calling reporters the enemy of the people because at the local level it is all too observable that the reporters are people the same as everyone else. That has changed.

Brian Karem

There is but one person responsible for taking the lives of our colleagues and friends at the Capital Gazette – the man who pulled the trigger. But the vitriol leveled at reporters everywhere cannot be ignored.

It is inherently more dangerous to be a reporter at every level today. We will not shy away from our job.

Those who died in Annapolis deserve that much. They did their job. We will serve their memory best by continuing to do ours and remembering those we’ve lost.

All five of the dead worked hard to produce and keep alive an award winning, long standing community newspaper dedicated to producing facts to better inform and make better the citizens of its community.

In a very real way these people represent all of us in our extended journalistic community, from the smallest weekly newspaper to the largest daily; from the smallest radio station to the largest television network.

We are all in this together. We are the people.

Brian Karem is the vice-president of the Maryland |Delaware | DC Press Association (MDDC) and the executive editor of The Sentinels.

A Better Vision for America Sharply contrasting visions of America clashed in Washington last month exemplifying an ongoing struggle for the hearts, minds and future of the American People.

Official Inhumanity In the days and years to come, we will remember June 2018 as the month when we reacted with horror as President Trump ordered little children, many of whom were seeking sanctuary from violence, locked into cages and denied their mothers’ comforting arms.

Less visible, but equally horrifying, June also was the month when the President’s Republican House allies passed a Farm Bill that would deprive hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of other poor children of the food that they need and deserve if they are to survive and thrive.

These two acts of inhumanity, as much as any other that we have suffered during the last eighteen months of Donald Trump’s presidency, should stamp his vision for our future indelibly in our minds.

If any of us were not already appalled, these outrages should redouble our determination to do everything within our power to restore an America that lives up to our national creed of liberty, justice and opportunity for all.

We must honestly and candidly confront not only the ways in which the President and his allies are failing – but also where we progressives, despite our best efforts to date, have yet to succeed.

Elijah Cummings

A National Calling to Moral Revival This was a core message that Senator Elizabeth Warren and I (along with other progressive legislators) received from the Poor People’s Campaign (A National Call for Moral Revival) during the Capitol Hill hearing that we called on June 12.

The Poor People’s Campaign is determined to change the narrative about poverty in this country. The evidence that they presented at our hearing in support of this alternative vision of an America without poverty deserves our careful attention [https://ips-dc.org/souls-of-poorfolks/ ].

This alternative vision (as opposed to that of President Trump and his allies) challenges the “myth” that poverty is the “fault” of the poor, as well as a second “myth” that the wealthiest society on earth cannot afford to ensure that all her people can thrive.

Rather than focusing upon individual failings of poor people, the Poor People’s Campaign challenges us to confront and overcome the “structural and systemic failings” of our society that allow tens of millions of us to remain in poverty (between 40 million Americans, according to the official poverty level, and as many as 140 million of us, according to the “supplemental poverty measure” that compares a person’s income and any public benefits with the necessary costs of daily life).

If any might doubt the relevance of the Poor People’s Campaign narrative about poverty, they should consider these facts about the need for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the Baltimore Region.

According to data from the US Department of Agriculture Food & Nutrition Service: (1) Nearly 180,000 Baltimore City individuals were receiving Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP or “Food Stamps”) in July of 2017. Although approximately 42,000 of these food stamp recipients were receiving other forms of public assistance, more than 137,000 were not.

(2) In Baltimore County, fewer than 13,000 of the more than 93,000 SNAP beneficiaries were receiving other forms of public assistance, while more than 80,000 were not.

(3) In affluent Howard County, of the 17,000-18,000 residents receiving SNAP benefits last year, only 2292 individuals were also receiving other public assistance benefits, while 14,892 were not.

These official statistics reveal that, in just three Baltimore-area counties, more than a quarter million Americans needed federal food aid just to survive last year – and this was true even though most of these struggling poor or near-poor American families were led by someone who was either working or looking for work.

What About Us? A Letter from America’s Children Dear U.S. Media, Democrats, Republicans, Independents and to the concerned Americans who poured out into the streets to protest Donald Trump’s cruel and faulty immigration policies, What about us?

We understand and applaud your response to this administration’s malevolent separation of immigrant families from their children, policies and practices so un-American and shocking that they have come to dominate the national conversation. Your immediate, visceral response to evil spurred you into action.

But there is another evil, a pervasive, chronic and unrelenting wickedness that we, your children, live with every day. We are being shot down on the nation’s streets, locked away in juvenile facilities, poisoned by dangerous drinking water, threatened and harassed by neighborhood gangs, left homeless, either alone from abuse or with parents that cannot afford to put a roof over our heads. We live in neighborhoods bereft of adequate food sources and with fathers and mothers so wrought with financial and psychological instability they can’t provide our needs.

And because our nation has lived with this reality so long, it has become almost accepted. It has become quietly and unconsciously perceived as part of the norm, part of the landscape, like the air we breathe, until little by little it becomes so caustic that it kills us or chokes us into action. Unfortunately for us, your children, you haven’t reached that point.

There are 408,000 of us, American children, who also have been separated from our families and placed in the care of others, like the 2,000 immigrant children who you took to the streets to protect. Many

Ron Harris

of us languish in foster care with little hope of ever being united with our parents or extended families. We watched the huge crowds that stretched across 700 U.S. cities Saturday. We saw the signs proudly held high that read, “Family Separations Are Cruel.”

And we thought, “Yes, they are.” What about us? Where is our march? Where is our media coverage?

Half of us currently in foster will be homeless within six months after growing too old for the system. We are unprepared to live on our own. We have limited education and no social support. About a quarter of the rest will be homeless within two to four years of leaving the system. Some of us will become part of the 20,000 U.S. children annually forced into prostitution.

This year, another two million of us will be separated from our families and placed behind bars and in juvenile custody. Many of us, like Clarice, one of twin 14-year-old sisters in Montgomery County, Md., can’t go home because there is no suitable home to go to. Her parents are homeless, and authorities can’t release her to an unstable home. Other parents are dysfunctional or can’t provide the guidance we need. So, we go behind bars because there are not enough treatment facilities for us.

We want a march, too, one for better schools for all, because you recognize how the hopelessness created by faulty education diminishes lives and leads to incarceration – that 32 percent of white males in juvenile custody dropped out of school, and that nearly half of AfricanAmerican and Hispanic male youth behind bars also quit.

Media reported how families from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico are fleeing to the U.S. to escape gangs in their countries. Many of us live in gang-infested neighborhoods, too. In cities like St. Louis, Baltimore, New Orleans, Detroit, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Mo., Memphis, Newark and Chicago, the 10 U.S.

Our Calling to Action This evidence confirms the substantial accuracy of the narrative about poverty in America advanced by the Poor People’s Campaign.

That is why I opposed the Republicans’ 2018 Farm Bill (the first time that I have voted against such an important federal initiative in my memory), and why I have publicly expressed the moral revulsion felt by so many Americans as we witnessed little children trapped in cages of prejudice and inhumanity.

We should be listening to Rev. Dr. William Barber, II, and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, leaders of the 2018 Poor People’s Campaign, and the everyday Americans who had the courage to testify at our June 12 hearing on Capitol Hill.

Both our morality and our patriotism demand that we join hands with the hundreds of thousands struggling to survive in our own community.

We need a moral revival if we are to finish Dr. King’s work and eliminate poverty in America – and we also need a political revival that speaks to the core struggles that are at the center of millions of American lives.

I seriously doubt whether anyone in the Trump Administration would even think about placing the children of rich immigrants in detention cages – and, as the Farm Bill’s party-line voting revealed, no one in the Republican House leadership would even dare to suggest that we should penalize rich corporate farms (in fact, they would receive enormous rewards if the Republican bill becomes law).

The moral and political indifference expressed by these outrageous official acts is the same: a fundamental preference for wealth over our shared humanity – and a clear disdain for those among us who are poor.

We are America, and there is a better vision for our nation – a vision of America without poverty – that we must come together to achieve. These are the failings that we must begin to correct on Election Day this year.

Congressman Elijah Cummings represents Maryland’s 7th Congressional Districtin the United States House of Representatives.

The opinions on this page are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the AFRO. Send letters to The Afro-American • 1531 S. Edgewood St. • Baltimore, MD 21227 or fax to 1-877-570-9297

cities with the highest murder rate, we have long understood their terror. We understand their fear.

In Chicago, a city rife with street gangs and where at least 16 children have been murdered in the first six months of this year, more than 50,000 people demonstrated for the rights of immigrants fleeing gangs in countries few of them have ever visited.

Ironically, they never marched for the children slain this year in a city they traverse every day -- Maysia Woodard, 1, Damarcus Wilson, 16; Deshawn James, 17; Rhomel Wellington, 17; Mateo Nathan Aguayo, 2; Joseph Smith, 16; Jose Aguilar, 14; Jayton Jones, 17; Erin Carey, 17; She’Vaughn O’Flynn, 12; Jechon Anderson, 11; China Lyons-Upshaw, 17; David Thomas 16; Parris Purdis, 17; Kyle McGowan, 17, and Jazmyn Jester, 15, who was among four people murdered and 13 others shot over 17 hours on a Tuesday and a Wednesday in May. Where do families like theirs emigrate to escape the violence?

Many of us live in poverty, one of every four children in Arizona, Georgia, California, Kentucky, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico and New York, one in three in the nation’s capital. At least 2.5 million of us will spend some period this year homeless, maybe a month, maybe six months or it will be just another year in an unrelenting grind. Most of us will spend at least one day every month without food.

Look at us. Pivot your cameras and microphones to us as well.

We are your children, and there is real evil that plagues us too.

What about us?

Ron Harris is a journalist, adjunct professor at Howard University and co-author of the new book The Black and The Blue, A Cop Reveals Crimes, Racism and Injustice in America’s Law Enforcement

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The Afro-American, July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018

July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018, The Afro-American

WASHINGTON-AREA

Grosso Sponsors Bill to Help DC Student Loan Borrowers

Fellow Journalists Speak Out About the Capital Gazette Shooting

By James Wright Special to the AFRO jwright@afro.com In May, many undergraduate, graduate, and professional students in the District of Columbia received their degrees. If they haven’t already, many are also waiting for something else – a bill for their student loans.

Many District graduates and working professionals are grappling with student loan debt and it has become a barrier for the purchase of a home and automobile.

D.C. Council member David

AP Photo

Courtesy Photo

Grosso (I-At Large) is aware of this crisis and authored legislation “The Student Loan Debt Forgiveness Act of 2017”, that is designed to deal with exploding student debt.

Grosso is the chairman of the Committee on Education and held a hearing on this bill June 25. “Student loan debt is unavoidable for many people,” the Council member said. “When I was in school, I financed my education

Continued on B2

New Documentary Shows Continuing Evolution of Marion Barry’s Legacy

By Lenore T. Adkins Special to the AFRO

Marcus K. Dowling and Kristin Jeffers are among the journalists who shared their reactions post the shooting at the Capital Gazette.

David Grosso is an at-large independent on the D.C. Council.

B1

By Hamzat Sani Special to the AFRO

related to the safety of their work and ours.

Last week five fellow journalists were taken from us in the line of duty at the Capital Gazette. Gerald Fischman, Robert Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters were all a part of the community of journalist dedicated to bringing the truth to light no matter how gritty or polished. Their loss is a reminder that their work often comes with danger present. Some have a view of journalist always busily hunched over a computer tapping away frantically at their keyboards hoping to communicate the depth of a story before deadline.

However, getting to the point where you have facts to actually report takes a great deal of legwork, research and sometimes pestering people that most would give a very wide berth. Journalist ask very dangerous people the questions we have but ofen fear the answers to.

In the wake of the Capital Gazette shooting The AFRO queried fellow journalists on the following questions

Camielle Lawson-Livingstone, Freelance Journalist 1. Do you feel unsafe after the shooting at the Capital Gazette given it happened so close to D.C.?

Yes, though proximity is the least relevant factor, this is America. Guns are everywhere and accessible by nearly everyone.

2. Do you feel gun reform will prevent more mass shootings?

Yes, though I do not believe the current reform options being tentatively suggested are likely to do much.

3. Do you feel that the media is literally under attack?

Yes, from both the inside and outside.

4. Have there ever been times where you felt unsafe doing your work as a journalist?

Yes, of course.

1. Do you feel unsafe after the shooting at the Capital Gazette given it happened so close to D.C.?

No more than I do on a daily basis, considering we’ve started to see mass shootings in every context and every place imaginable.

2. Do you feel gun reform will prevent more mass shootings?

It depends. There are a lot of people who own guns, but never think to use them to shoot up masses of people.

Also, guns may go away, but we haven’t discussed bombs and other chemical attacks, as well as other attacks such as theft and other means of terrorizing people.

3. Do you feel that the media is literally under attack?

No more than it has been. I think this is yet another case of a long string of attacks on the media. As I’ve seen on several other journalist social media pages and in articles, this is a lot of folks’ worst fears. There’s always someone

Continued on B2

Kristin Jeffers, Freelance Journalist

The political downfall and resurrection of the late Marion Barry, beloved by many as “Mayor for Life,” and derided by some as a crooked politician, figures prominently in a new special documenting the District’s 90s-era highs and lows.

Washington in the ‘90s premieres 8 p.m. July 10 on WETA TV Channel 26 and HD. The hour-long program chronicles Washington, D.C.’s transition from a city of headline-grabbing violence and corruption to a land of opportunity. The AFRO received an advanced copy of the special for reporting purposes.

Black Washington is on full display in the program.

It dives into the go-go music scene. In the ‘90s, Go-Go was more popular in D.C. than Hip Hop. But many Go-Go clubs, including the Ibex, were shut down because of the shootings and other violence that many blamed on the music.

The special also details former D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt’s stumbles in office – she made the unpopular decision to scuttle Barry’s popular summer jobs program and was widely blamed for losing the Washington Redskins.

The documentary showcases the Million Man March, the construction of the Green Line and the subsequent Continued on B2

DC Has Plenty for Kids to do During the Summer

D.C. Reporter Presents Obscure Story of Memphis Garbage Workers

By James Wright Special to the AFRO jwright@afro.com

By James Wright Special to the AFRO jwright@afro.com

Young people sometimes get into mischief over the summer because they aren’t required to be in school.

The District of Columbia’s government and non-profit organizations have stepped up to see that children,

particularly those in Wards 7 and 8, are engaged in meaningful activities.

One example of this is the “Safe Summer” program sponsored primarily by the Far Southeast Family Strengthening Collaborative (FSFSC) located in Ward 8.

The program is in its 15th year and held its kickoff on Continued on B2

When people discuss the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., they talk about the speech he gave in Memphis the night before and the shooting. Few discuss the striking garbage workers, the

reason he was in Memphis in April 1968.

Local journalist Adelle Banks took on that challenge and gave a multimedia presentation on June 30. Her presentation, “Social Justice Talk with Adelle Banks,” was sponsored by Asbury’s United Methodist Women’s Social Program.

Banks said she was excited

about going to Memphis during the week of April 4 to learn more about the Black garbage collection workers.

“I landed in Memphis and went to Lorraine Hotel, where Dr. King was killed, and to the National Civil Rights Museum nearby,” she said to a group of 30 people. “I really wanted to see the Rev.

Continued on B2

Musical Based on The Temptations Thunders at Kennedy Center Lenore T. Adkins Special to the AFRO Next to “Hamilton,” “Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Times of the Temptations” is one of the hottest shows at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as tickets are going fast, but the musical hasn’t sold out.

After earning rave reviews and breaking records during its premiere run at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre last fall, “Ain’t Too Proud” opened June 19 at the Kennedy Center, where it remains through July 22.

“Ain’t Too Proud,” featuring a mostly African-American cast, hits Los Angeles and Toronto after D.C., before landing on Broadway, hopefully by spring 2019.

The musical chronicles the group’s humble Detroit beginnings as five country boys in the Motor City — where you either sang or joined a gang as the group’s last surviving member Otis Williams tells it — to national and international stars with 14 number one hits.

After Motown Records impresario Berry

Photo by litwin

The cast of “Ain’t Too Proud” - The Life and Times of The Temptations at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Gordy discovered the five fellas, they launched 42 hits, including “My Girl,” “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” “Cloud

Nine”, “Just My Imagination” and the show’s namesake “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” — all of which the actors flawlessly execute.

If you’ve spent a long weekend watching “The Temptations” 1998 four-hour miniseries, you’ll see topics in the musical that the miniseries didn’t cover.

For example, Williams, played by Derrick Baskin in the musical, reveals he spent six months in juvenile detention for gang activity.

After watching the Cadillacs perform at Detroit’s Fox Theater, Williams decided right then and there to pursue music instead of crime.

“Ain’t Too Proud” also points out that The Temptations originally recorded the anti-Vietnam War protest song “War,” but Motown refused to release it, out of fear The Temptations would lose white fans. The song instead went to Motown artist Edwin Starr, who rerecorded it and turned it into a numberone hit.

Prize-winning playwright and Detroit native Dominique Morisseau collaborated with Williams to create “Ain’t Too Proud.” And it was important to them to include storylines Continued on B2

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The Afro-American, July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018

Journalists Speak Out

shootings?

I honestly don’t know but some weapons appear to have no legitimate purpose in a civil society.

Continued from B1

who’s hypercritical of the work and sometimes that person is more than willing to threaten death or extreme violence. Sadly, in Annapolis, that person decided to show up.

3. Do you feel that the media is literally under attack?

No. This was a unique situation not related to political bent or bias but a personal dispute.

4. Have there ever been times where you felt unsafe doing your work as a journalist?

Yes, even just being online and knowing that women tend to be harassed or questioned more than men and that alone can cause more mental terror than necessary.

4. Have there ever been times where you felt unsafe doing your work as a journalist?

Yes as a crime reporter I’ve had some precarious situations but for the most part I feel safe. I don’t think I’d feel safe at some of these rallies though.

Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Education Editor, The Conversation US 1. Do you feel unsafe after the shooting at the Capital Gazette given it happened so close to D.C.?

I still feel safe because I work from home but even if I didn’t what happened is an aberration that appears to be based on a dispute between the newspaper and the aggrieved perpetrator.

Marcus K. Dowling, Freelance Journalist 1. Do you feel unsafe after the shooting at the Capital Gazette given it happened so close to D.C.?

I’ve always regarded Annapolis as close, but separated by say, Route 50. Dr. King said that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” though. Thus, I feel like this is the type of issue that “inspires” manic individuals to acts of madness pretty much anywhere.

2. Do you feel gun reform will prevent more mass

Grosso

Continued from B1 through work-study programs and other education partners.”

PRNewswire published a story in its June 26 edition that 10 percent of student loan borrowers in the District owe more than $100,000, the highest in the nation. The article said that 25 percent of the District’s population has an advanced degree (master’s and professional).

Grosso’s legislation would empower an office of the ombudsman to help borrowers and set guidelines for District residents to relieve their student loan debt. The bill has the support of D.C. Council members Trayon White (D-Ward 8), Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) and Vincent Gray (D-Ward 7).

Dr. Eddy Ameen, a District career psychologist, testified at the hearing that financial stress is a factor for students in the higher education realm. “While survey data can tell you how important it is, I receive frequent phone calls and visits from members that are riddled with debt,” he said. “That’s all they can do to succumb to it.”

Ameen said many of his patients wish they had alternatives to student loans for financing education and wish there was an active program that suited them to forgive their debt. He said the majority or nearly half

Kids

Continued from B1 June 29 at the Bethlehem Baptist Church on Martin Luther King Jr., Ave., S.E. Perry Moon, the FSFSC’s executive director, told the AFRO “Safe Summer” is going strong.

“We have a good turnout today,” Moon said. “We are excited about the activities that we have for young people in the ward this summer. We are encouraging young people to remain safe throughout the summer.”

So far, according to statistics of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, there has seen a 41 percent increase in homicides in the District even though crime overall is down.

Many of the homicides have taken place in eastern wards of the city and programs like “Safe Summer” are designed to keep young people off the streets. Young people can get involved with “Safe Summer” with scheduled visits to the libraries in the ward, participating in sports, arts and academic programs that take place at Emmanuel Baptist Church and the Southeast Tennis & Learning Center and recreation centers such as Bald Eagle and Barry Farm.

FSFSC partners with the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation, the police department, the Anacostia Coordinating Council, and the office of D.C. Council member Trayon White (D-Ward 8).

“Our partners help make this work,” Moon said.

The kickoff consisted of popcorn food

The Temptations Continued from B1

about the group’s songs, relationships and tenure at Motown that weren’t mentioned in the miniseries.

“We have a lot of new things that the story is talking about and we have a lot of new ways that the music is being used,” Morisseau told the AFRO. “That will distinguish it from any other medium. Otherwise there’s no reason to do it in the theater.”

Like the miniseries, the musical is told from Williams’ perspective. It also goes into how the bandmates suffered with the dark side of fame, battling drug and alcohol abuse, infidelity, health issues, fierce rivalries with one another and broken homes.

In one poignant scene, Williams’ son Lamont, played by Shawn Bowers, sings the chorus of “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”

2. Do you feel gun reform will prevent more mass shootings?

Gun reform will not. Individuals who are passionate about their guns and their rights to bear arms will always have both, plus be willing to follow regulations. Also, because freedom and equality are what they are in how they encompass ALL viewpoints, if angered, gun owners CAN respond violently.

3. Do you feel that the media is literally under attack?

I feel like that’s an apt statement.

4. Have there ever been times where you felt unsafe doing your work as a journalist?

I believe that if a perspective is presented honestly and with significant evidence to support it, that there’s enough protection offered by information. Of course, given that we’re so diametrically opposed, what’s required to create that evidence is more considerable than it has ever been.

We honor the life and work of those lost reporting the truth here and in other parts of the world and do not take for granted the privilege of having journalists ask the hard questions we struggle to find the language for. Rest in power and print.

of the people in his field have delayed saving for the future, retirement planning, buying a house, and having children because of student loan debt.

Ameen said he likes Grosso’s bill and encouraged him to, among other things, encourage student loan debt from federal institutions and not private concerns and requested that the bill include District public workers who graduated before 2016. He also said that while $75,000 is a great deal of money in other parts of the country, in the District it is almost an average salary and adjustments must be made to take that into account.

In addition, Ameen wants the public service loan forgiveness program to be more active in the District.

Shana Young, chief of staff for the District’s Office of State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), told Grosso that establishing an ombudsman could be problematic because many District residents would have to be helped by this program and that could be overwhelming. “We appreciate the bill’s sponsors attempting to address student loan debt, which is a significant concern for many District residents,” Young said.

Grosso said the bill “is a work in progress” and offered his opinions. “Perhaps borrowers should be required to take financial literacy classes before they take on these loans,” he said.

Documentary

booths along with tents serving icees and bottled water. There was a disc jockey playing the latest songs, and moon bounces and mountain climbs for young people.

District agencies such as the Department of Employment Services had a mobile unit available, the United Communications Department, that coordinates 9-1-1 and 3-11 calls, and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s community liaisons, known as MOCRS, were on hand. Black Nurses Rock DMV, an organization of African-American nurses in the Washington, D.C. area, also had a tent.

“We are here to educate the community,” Perina Gaines, Black Nurses Rock DMV president told the AFRO. “We are here to inform people about heart health, healthy cooking, and mental health.”

While the FSFSC focuses on activities for young people, the Mayor Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Program (MBSYEP) kicked off its summer youth employment program June 25 at Check It Enterprises. Bowser was on hand to lift-off the program that will employ 10,000 District youth in 800 public and private work sites throughout the city.

“MBSYEP is about so much more than just a job – it is an opportunity for our community to help level the playing field; to keep our young people safe and engaged throughout the summer; and to build a network of professionals who are invested in helping their young neighbors succeed,” the mayor said.

The MBSYEP runs through August 3 while “Safe Summer” ends on July 31.

retired Washington Redskins player Darrell Green; filmmaker Sam Bardley; and NBC4 anchor Pat Lawson Muse. Long-time NBC4 anchor and reporter Doreen Gentzler narrates the program.

Gentzler joined NBC4 in 1989 and had been on the job six months when federal and local authorities arrested Marion Barry in an undercover operation in a D.C. hotel room.

Gentzler remembers her co-anchor Jim Vance was out at a dinner, so the responsibility of breaking the news – and interrupting the popular show LA Law – fell on her shoulders.

“I just remember thinking, ‘I am not the right person to do this six months on the job.

Let’s find Vance. He needs to do this or we need to do this together,’” Gentzler told the AFRO. “I don’t want to be right out there by myself with this one.”

It was a tumultuous time in the District and Barry became a national punchline. The documentary shows grainy footage of the former mayor smoking crack with a woman who wasn’t his wife and David Letterman lampooning the former mayor on the comedian’s namesake late-night talk show.

In a story of D.C. legend, the polarizing Barry launched his political comeback after serving six months in prison on a misdemeanor

to describe his strained relationship with his father. Williams is essentially absent from Lamont’s life because he’s always touring with The Temptations.

The dance moves and choreography were flawless and exciting and the singing was powerful — the audience saved its loudest cheers and applause for David Ruffin (Ephraim Sykes), who frequently launched into splits.

The audience ate up the show, with many singing and clapping along with The Temptations to their greatest hits.

For those who wonder about the women who supported the chart-topping group, this musical is all about the guys — women have a limited role in this production.

“Ain’t Too Proud” is based on Williams’ book “The Temptations.” The production is directed by two-time Tony Award-winner Des McAnuff and choreographed by Olivier Award winner Sergio Trujillo.

Continued from B1

revitalization of U Street that included the reopening of the historic Lincoln Theater.

Washington in the 90s deploys archival footage, music, and original interviews with Washingtonians to bring the 1990s to life.

WETA Producer Seth Tillman, 37, who grew up in and around the District in the 1990s, created a program that amplifies what he thinks newcomers and Washingtonians should know about the city and why what happened back then is relevant today. “It seems almost like a simpler time right now, but there was a stronger D.C. identity and people feel that sometimes slipping away,” Tillman told the AFRO. Among those interviewed are Cora Masters Barry, former first lady of Washington, D.C.; former D.C. mayors Anthony Williams and Pratt; Kamal Ali, co-owner of Ben’s Chili Bowl; author and activist Tony Lewis Jr.;

drug charge, winning the Ward 8 seat on the D.C. City Council in 1992. He was reelected mayor for his fourth and final term in 1994, defeating Pratt.

In 1995, Congress launched the District of Columbia Financial Control Board to monitor city spending, in light of financial woes dogging the city. Two years later, Congress stripped Barry of the majority of his mayoral

Above: Marion Barry (D.C. mayor, 1979-1991, 1995-1999) during his inauguration parade, January 1995 Left: Sharon Pratt (D.C. mayor, 1991-1995) power, doling out nine crucial city departments to the control board. “It was painful to watch – that overseer federal government looming over us as if we were irresponsible people,” Pratt recalled in the documentary.

The show credits Barry for bringing the MCI Center (then the home of the Washington Capitals) to the District, a move that helped spur downtown development and attracted restaurants and nightspots.

Barry died in 2014 at the age of 78.

Former Mayor Williams, then the city’s chief financial officer, took over after Barry decided not to run for reelection in 1998 and saved the city from financial ruin. Williams, a policy wonk, ushered in the city’s gentrification, spurring people to leave the suburbs and move into the city – a trend continuing today under Mayor Muriel Bowser.

“The bad part of it is displacement where people who were part of the city had a stake in the city when the city was struggling,” Williams says in the documentary. “Now that the city’s doing well, they’re no longer a part of that picture.”

The documentary’s light-hearted moments include the manufactured doomsday hysteria surrounding the imagined Y2K frenzy, the Washington Redskins winning the Super Bowl, and the blizzard of 1996. The Clinton years and the District’s emergence as a tech hub are included as well.

Garbage Workers Continued from B1

Cleophus Smith, who is one of the few garbage collection workers who is still on the job.”

Banks is a production editor and national reporter for the Religion News Service and won the 2014 Wilbur Award for her piece on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

Banks spoke with Smith for nearly an hour. She said the interview was funny and heart-breaking at times but always informative and insightful.

She showed clips of the interview on the church’s projector. In one clip, he described the work of garbage collection workers at the time.

“Back in those days, when we had to get the trash, we had to get the garbage out of a 50-gallon drum,” Smith

said on one clip. “We would generally let the water in the garbage drain out so it would be easier to carry.”

Noting that he and his colleagues were generally dirty and smelly after completing their shifts, Smith said many of the workers had to walk home “because they wouldn’t let us on the bus.”

Their White colleagues didn’t have to deal with harsh work and were usually driving the truck when doing pickups, Smith said. He also said that Blacks had to keep working despite rainy weather. Further, he added that workers only had to two days off, Christmas and the July 4th.

Presently, garbage collection workers have much better benefits, with being vested in the city’s retirement last year. However, despite

their connection with King, they won the right to a day off on his birthday- a national holiday- several years ago by “not showing up to work on that day for three years.”

Banks also talked about the role that Clayborn Temple Church played during the strike and she showed clips of Mason Temple, where King delivered his last public address on April 3, 1968. She showed clips of the National Civil Rights Museum’s collection of the strike, with artifacts and memorabilia from the era.

Banks said the experience of doing the multi-media piece in Memphis was touching. “Looking at the video can be very emotional,” she told the AFRO. “It was an honor and a tragedy to do this. It was important to do this though because sometimes in history, some people’s story gets lost.”

July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018, The Afro-American

Holy Communion at Feast Day Service (l-r) Kwasi Holman, Joseph Fons, Rev. Martha K. Clark, Rector, St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church on the SW Waterfront, Diana Gustafson Barbara and Neal Peirce, Founding St. Augustine Parish Members and Cissy Marshall in the Marshall Gallery

Kwasi Holman, St. A’s Vestry Member, and Jeanne Mattison, Representative, Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen’s Office

Thurgood “Goodie” Marshall admiring his father’s photo in the Marshall Gallery

B3

Recently St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church hosted a celebration of the life and legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall. St. Augustine’s is the church that Justice Marshall and his family attended after arriving in Washington. Mrs. Cecilia “Cissy” Marshall, the widow of Justice Marshall, still attends St. Augustine’s, serving on the Altar Guild. Honored guests included Kenya’s Ambassador Robinson Njeru, a country where Justice Marshall served as a constitutional advisor in the 1960s. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, (D-DC) delivered the morning homily. Ms. Thomasina Yearwood, President and Chief Operating Officer, Thurgood Marshall Center Trust, Ms. Zoma Wallace, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and Ms. Jeanne Mattison, Ambassador Councilmember Charles Allen’s Njeru Githae representative, were honored guests. reading a The service was followed by a ribbon lesson at the cutting ceremony for the Marshall service Gallery.

Zoma Wallace, Ebony McMorris, Thomasina Yearwood attending Thurgood Marshall Feast Day Service at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church

Thelma D. Jones presenting a bouquet of flowers to Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton after the Marshall Gallery ribbon cutting with Kwasi Holman and Cissy Marshall looking on

Ovation performing at the Thurgood Marshall Feast Day under the direction of Music Director Shirli Hug Kenya Ambassador Robinson Njeru Githae holds a photo of Thurgood Marshall as an Honorary Chief of Kenyan’s Kikuyu Tribe with Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Mrs. Cecilia “Cissy” Thurgood Marshall

Zoma Wallace, Archivist, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (left) shares a laugh with St. Augustine’s member, Thelma D. Jones

On June 2, the First Baptist Church of Glenarden celebrated 25 years of its annual health fair, with the theme- Bold Radiant Reflection of God. The Church’s Pastor, the Reverend John K. Jenkins emphasized the importance of health and fitness. “We are trying to help people live longer and better,” said Reverend Jenkins who added that over the years

WHUR’s radio personality Mr. “C” Carroll H. Hynson Jr.

Cissy Marshall viewing the Marshall Gallery

Marshall Gallery Ribbon Cutting (l-r) Ambassador Robinson Njeru Githae, Congresswoman Norton and Cissy Marshall

Thomasina Yearwood, President & Chief Operating Officer, Thurgood Marshall Center Trust, Cissy Marshall, Marjorie Gilliard and Thurgood Marshall Jr. Photos by Elisabeth Brown

Exercising in the church aisles

Rock climbing for the children

the annual event has actually saved lives.

“We have had people discover that they had cancer and because it was detected earlier enough it prolonged their life,” he said. Fitness expert, Donna Richardson was one of the special guests, and led dance fitness and preached to guests.

“You have to make a commitment,” Richardson told the gathering. “How can you take care of business if you are sick in bed. Make a commitment to start,” she encouraged guests.

Pastor John Jenkins and First Lady Trina Jenkins

Zumba class

Epilepsy Foundation: Rasheedah Barfield, Edana Perry and Rose Cook

Fitness and Aerobics instructor, Donna Richardson

The program

Capital Congestive Care: Michelle Haught, Davia Mowatt, Dr. Ann Marie Stephenson, Marvin Lawrence, and Melanie Jackson

Boot Camp Challenge

WHUR’s Taylor Thomas and Mr. “C” Carroll Hynson Jr., Pastor John Jenkins, First Lady Trina Jenkins, WHUR’s Michele Wright and NBC Washington’s Molete Green

Senior Cove Members: Linda Ferguson, Pearl Hynes, Cathy Jackson, Maxine German-Dawkins and Lisa Thompson

B4

The Afro-American, July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018

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July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018, The Afro-American

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ARTS & CULTURE

Actor and Director Damien D. Smith Puts New Spin on Term ‘Traveling For Work’ Nadine Matthews Special to the AFRO Actor and director Damien D. Smith is on a roll.

His film “Jinn”, about a teenager whose life is turned upside down after her mother simultaneously converts to Islam and goes through an identity crisis, won the Special Jury Award at the most recent South by Southwest Festival (SXSW). The week-long annual event in Austin, Texas is best known for its conference and festivals that highlight the best in interactive, film, and music. it is increasingly one of the most influential of all media related festivals. “Jinn” also stars Simone Missick (Luke Cage), Dorian Missick (Southland, Animal Kingdom), and Hisham Tawfiq (The Blacklist).

More recently, the St. Louis native won the American Black Film Festival’s Jack Daniel’s Gentleman Jack Reel to Reel Award for directing a touching homage to Black fatherhood, the short film “Daddy’s Big Girl”. In it, a dad prepares his young daughter to adjust to a life where he will no longer be a daily presence. Reel to Reel is a collaboration between the Gentleman Jack and Codeblack Entertainment that helps to uplift the next wave of Black film creatives and showcase their work to local and national audiences. Actor Omari Hardwick (Power, Sorry To Director Damien D. Smith recently won awards for his films “Jinn” Bother You) is the brand’s official ambassador. “Omari Hardwick is the perfect brand ambassador,” Smith says, “because he is so giving of his time, energy, wanted to do it for a career, I moved straight to New York City from and resources. It’s funny because I had written a script and Omari high school.” In New York City, lots of theater work honed his acting was at the top of my list for one of the characters and just how the skills. A later move to Los Angeles gave Smith the opportunity to universe- God, set things up, he and I were able to sit down and have learn the ins and outs of working behind the camera. ”I worked on a a conversation not only about Reel to Reel but about my vision.” whole lot of sets doing grip and electric and I learned enough to make Studies show that decisiveness is a key indicator of success and my award winning directorial debut with About That.” it seems to have always been a strong part of Smith’s character.

Smith has so far participated in a number of films that center Knowing he wanted to be an actor, Smith wasted no time in pursuing young Black women. He reveals he is personally able to connect with his passion. “I was always watching a lot of movies. I was just a theses stories because, “As a man I’m able to connect with it because movie head and a big sci-fi head. When I got older and I realized I

I feel we’re telling our stories. We have diverse religions and nationalities. I love that there are so many empowering truths that you can pick up from “Jinn”. Not just young women, young people need to see it.”

Smith points to Spike Lee, F. Gary Gray, Sidney Lumet, and Francis Ford Coppola as his directorial idols. “Ideally,” he says, “I’d like a career that continues to allow me to perform in front of as well as behind the camera. As a director and writer I have stories I want to tell.

The stories I believe in combat stereotypes or misconceptions about African-Americans or other groups. I just want to give voice to the voiceless.”

An inveterate traveler, Smith has seen enough of the world to write and direct a lifetime of stories and with the sensitivity of someone with first-hand knowledge of myriad cultures. He has traveled to Ireland, Germany, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, United KIngdom, Guatemala, Antigua, and Dominican Republic, to name a few places. He has also been, he says, “To forty-six of the states in the United States.”

(Courtesy photo) He insists, “When I travel I try to learn as much as I can and pick up information., and grow and study as much as I can with the people who are artists in their country. Traveling is growth.

When I travel, it’s me learning something that’s gonna help me be a better storyteller.” Smith is now getting ready for his next trip, which will be to Vietnam. “I have a buddy who just got back from Vietnam and he told me ‘Man, you gotta go. It’s a beautiful place. It’s tranquil and peaceful.’”

Smith is working hard to get his first feature length film completed. Follow his journey on social media at @damiendsmith.

His short film, About That is available on iTunes. Smith is also is seeking to have Daddy’s Big Girl distributed on iTunes.

Ndaba Mandela’s Memoir Reveals Lessons Learned from Madiba Ndaba feeling like he was the “Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” Nelson Mandela raised his grandson as if he was his own child and was a strict disciplinarian. When Ndaba lost his school jersey for “Always stay humble. Be a leader. Don’t drive a Jaguar because the second time, the elder Mandela told him to sleep outside. For the you don’t want people to know how wealthy you are.” Those are first hour, things were fine, but after that, the weather turned cold and some of the critical lessons Ndaba Mandela, 35, learned during the 20 dark. Twenty minutes after Ndaba Mandela started making a bed out years he lived with his grandfather, Nelson Mandela, the first Black of grass, his grandfather called out to him, saying if he lost another president of South Africa and a global humanitarian. jersey, he would definitely sleep outside. Then he told him to get in the On June 26, Hachette Books released those teachings as Ndaba house, grab some dinner and go to bed, Ndaba Mandela recalled.

Mandela’s memoir: Going to the Mountain: Life Lessons from My In another anecdote his grandson shared, Nelson Mandela, who Grandfather, Nelson Mandela. hung out with Michael Jackson and beauty queens, was fully aware The Washington D.C. stop of his book tour took the younger of his royal pedigree. Once when Queen Elizabeth called Nelson Mandela to the Library of Congress on June 27, where Librarian of Mandela’s home, he referred to her as “Elizabeth.” When he got Congress Carla Hayden interviewed him about life with the human off the phone and was questioned about why he didn’t call her your rights icon. majesty, his response was “But why? She calls me Nelson. We always Going to the Mountain in the book’s title refers to two things: call each other by our first name. Do you forget that I’m a prince?” male circumcision, which marks the transition from a boy to a man in One reason Ndaba Mandela penned the book was to educate the South Africa, and a famous quote from Nelson Mandela. “As Nelson next generation about his grandfather, also known by his traditional Photo Courtesy of Shawn Miller, Library of Congress.

Mandela said, ‘After climbing a great hill, and you reach the top of name, “Madiba.”

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, left, with Ndaba that hill, you realize there are so many more mountains to climb,’” “I just wanted to connect to a young audience basically because we Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s 35-year-old grandson, Ndaba Mandela said. know the value of Madiba, but young audiences really don’t know the during a question and answer session at the Library of Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison for political activism value of Madiba,” Ndaba Mandela told the AFRO. “So, I wanted to Congress about his book, Going to the Mountain: Lessons against apartheid. Following his release in 1993, he was elected South connect to the audience.” from My Grandfather, Nelson Mandela.

Africa’s first Black president the following year in the country’s first He also wrote the book to celebrate the centennial of his democratic election. Following that, he led his country through its grandfather’s birth, which falls on July 18. That day is celebrated peaceful transition from apartheid. around the world as Nelson Mandela Day, a time to honor his achievements in democracy, peace, human The younger Mandela was 11 when he moved in with his grandfather in 1993 and had only met him rights, conflict resolution, and reconciliation. once — in 1990 when Nelson Mandela was still in prison. They lived together until 2013 when Madiba died He’s fully aware that much is expected of him as a Mandela. So, he’s carrying on his grandfather’s at the age of 95. Before moving in Ndaba Mandela was living with his parents in what he called a “Soweto legacy as cofounder and cochairman of Africa Rising. The nonprofit promotes a positive image of Africa ghetto.” around the world while developing entrepreneurs and training 60 African youths to code so they can secure One day, Nelson Mandela’s driver dropped by unannounced in a “big, black BMW” to take him to his entry-level jobs in technology. grandfather’s mansion. The mansion, located in a leafy White suburb north of Johannesburg, was a world “You know, [people] constantly want to put you in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela and want to know away from Soweto. The palace was filled with drivers, a chef, security guards, and other servants, leaving what are you doing for your community. Luckily, I am doing something for my community.”

By Lenore T. Adkins Special to the AFRO

SPORTS

Bron to L.A. - Can the Lakers and LeBron Win Title Together?

By Perry Green and Stephen D. Riley AFRO Sports Desk LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers agreed to a four-year, $154 million deal on July 1, the opening day of NBA free agency. The King is on the move again but he’s walking right into the Lion’s den heading out west to the same state as the two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors. LeBron’s going to turn the Lakers around—that’s not a question. But can LeBron and the Lakers battle the Warriors before his four-year deal is up? Perry Green and Stephen D. Riley of the AFRO SportsDesk debates?

Riley: Yes. Simple as that. The Lakers are going to field a team around LeBron but let’s not act like the roster is bare. Years of futility has laced the Lakers with a lavish group of young and upcoming talents that will have to grow up quicker than before. But that’s not all. The Lakers still have cap space and a few maneuvers that they can pull to open up even more room to sign another max player. Maybe it’s DeMarcus Cousins? Maybe it’s Khawi Leonard? The Lakers will open up next season with perhaps more hoopla and fan fare than the defending champion Warriors. Stack LeBron on top of Leonard, surround them with a cache of young athletes and competition could heat up quick in California.

Green: Continuity will go a long way in the Warriors holding off the Lakers. LeBron to any team instantly makes that organization a competitor against Golden State but there aren’t too many teams in the Association with four all-stars in one lineup that can run with the Warriors. And securing another max

player could force Los Angeles to depart with some of its young talent so there could be a completely new roster to open up the season in October. This is far from a finished product and we’re already talking about the Lakers beating the Warriors just because they signed LeBron who’s 1-3 over the last four years against them? I don’t get it.

Riley: LeBron’s record might not be withstanding against the Warriors but he’s clearly a threat against them. I can’t punish James for not having the proper tools After returning to his hometown to handle the Warriors but Magic team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, for Johnson and the Lakers will four years (and serving 11 years definitely outfit James with all the total on the team), LeBron James ammunition he needs to upend the league’s newest dynasty. It’s almost has agreed to four-year deal with a foregone at this point that the the Los Angeles Lakers Lakers will land Leonard whether it’s this season or next. Pairing LeBron and Leonard up gets you a full seven-game series against the Warriors. Adding any more spice to the Lakers pot should put them ahead and in line for LeBron’s next title.

Green: Fits and cohesion always get lost in the thought of superteams but it’s very real. The Warriors just fit together. The Boston Celtics in 2008 just fell into place. LeBron can play with anyone but can just anyone play with him? The Warriors have so much muscle memory from the last four years that creating a team on the fly in a span of three months until the new season starts and expecting them to gel over 82 games and beat the Warriors will be tough this year and next. As long as Kevin Durant keeps inking mini contracts to stay in Golden State and Steph Curry is able to stay healthy, this Warriors team won’t be beat.

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The Afro-American, July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018

July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018, The Afro-American

Race and Politics

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BALTIMORE-AREA

Black Male Yoga Initiative Helps Heal Young Brothers One at a Time I spent most of my birthday (July 1) weekend at a “no tech Yoga retreat” at the Bar-T Mountainside Summer Camp, in Urbana, Maryland.

For those who know me well, the sight of me at a Yoga retreat is an antithetical narrative; for decades I eschewed the practice of Yoga in favor of weight training (I’ve Sean Yoes been lifting Baltimore AFRO since I was Editor 13), then syoes@afro.com I met my good Brother Changa Bell.

Bell’s story in many ways is a mythic one. In the early 2000’s, he was pursuing a career as a filmmaker, when a previously undiagnosed heart condition was revealed; Bell’s heart would inexplicably stop and then start beating again.

“The doctor’s solution was to install a pacemaker,” Bell told me. Instead, he opted to dramatically alter his life. “I changed; stopped drinking, smoking weed, doing happy hours and stopped dating multiple women,” he added.

By the mid 2000’s, Bell seemed to be drowning in his own outsized ambition.

He was pursuing multiple degrees; as a McNair Scholar in 2006, he sought an MA in Comparative Regional Studies (Latin America), an MBA in International Marketing and was a PhD candidate in Economics. But, the pressure of powerful personal issues,

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After Being Unjustly Incarcerated, Inaugural Class of Mayor’s Johnson Walks Free For the First Scholars Program at Time in 30 Years BCCC Begins Analysis

By Deborah Bailey Special to the AFRO

Photo credit: Taya Graham

Jerome Johnson (left), wrongly incarcerated for murder in 1988, was freed this week after spending 30 years in prison.

Here he is taking his first steps as a free man, alongside his defense attorney Nancy Forster.

By Stephen Janis and Taya Graham Special to the AFRO

When Judge William Peters declared Jerome Johnson a free man July 2, the circuit court jurist said little to the man who had just spent 30 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

It was perhaps a fitting show of symbolic silence for a justice system which had forced Johnson to unjustly spend all of his adult life in a jail cell, and until recently seemed indifferent to his plight.

When Johnson emerged onto Lexington St., just outside the Mitchell Courthouse downtown, he seemed inclined toward circumspection as the media swarmed and his family celebrated, preferring not to speak to the press.

His first step outside the courthouse as a free man marked the end of what would seem like an unfathomable ordeal, which began after he was accused and charged with murder based upon the identification of a lone juvenile.

In 1988 Johnson was convicted of participating in the

murder of Aaron Taylor, who was shot to death inside the Night Owl Bar in North Baltimore.

The eyewitness placed Johnson at the scene of the crime, and based upon the then juvenile’s testimony, he was convicted of murder.

But, that testimony was called into question after the MidAtlantic Innocence Project took his case.

During their investigation the man who shot Taylor and was ultimately convicted for the crime signed an affidavit, which swore Johnson was not there when the shooting occurred. The group also managed to track down an alibi for Johnson which was not included as evidence during his trial Armed with the new evidence, the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit opened an investigation into the case, which ultimately cleared Johnson.

Shortly after Johnson was freed, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said Johnson’s case was another example of a deeply flawed justice system that her office is working to fix.

“Our prosecutors have been sworn to not only aggressively Continued on D2

Summer 2018 marks the beginning of a new academic opportunity for Baltimore City Public School (BCPS) graduates. More than 500 high school graduates comprise the inaugural class of the Mayor’s Scholars Program.

Close to 540 students and their families descended on the Baltimore City Community College main campus on Liberty Hgts., in West Baltimore for the Mayor’s Scholars summer orientation this week. The Mayor’s Scholars initiative implemented by Mayor Catherine Pugh allows participants to enroll at Baltimore City Community College tuition free, while pursuing an Associate Degree or completing one of BCCC’s workforce development programs.

“Not only are we making Baltimore City Community College free, we want to make sure these students have every opportunity to be successful,” Mayor Pugh said during her weekly press briefing.

“This is a movement that is happening across the country and we are leading it in this state,” she said.

Additionally, 350 of the Mayor’s Scholars are also enrolled in the city’s Youth Works Program; 58 participants are immigrants with scholarships offered jointly through the Mayor’s Youth Program and CASA of Continued on D2

Baltimore Area Church News

Baltimore County Police Involved Set The Captives Free Outreach Center Shooting Leaves One Wounded is Relocating

By Joi Thomas Special to the AFRO

By Michelle Richardson Special to the AFRO

A car chase by Baltimore County Police ended with the shooting of a suspect in the early hours of July 3.

According to Baltimore County Police Public Information Officer (PIO), Sean Vinson, the incident started approximately at 5:00 a.m. when officers were dispatched for a theft at the Walgreens at the intersection of Harford and Joppa Road in the Parkville community of Baltimore County.

When units arrived on the scene, they found out the vehicle in question had stolen tags. When officers began to follow the suspected vehicle, a pursuit ensued that lasted about 15 minutes said Vinson.

The officer followed the

suspected car onto Pulaski Highway near 65th St in Rosedale where the suspects car was allegedly driven

towards the officer; hitting the officer’s car.

The officer shot into the suspects car but, the car continued away from the scene heading toward

Baltimore City, despite a passenger in the vehicle being struck by gunfire.

The suspect’s vehicle eventually became disabled on Moravia Road according to police and officers were able to take the female driver and the male passenger into custody.

The wounded passenger was transported to an area hospital, but his condition is unknown at press time.

The officer’s identity has not been released but, Baltimore County Police officials did say the officer was driving the same car Officer Amy Caprio was driving the day she died in the line of duty in May, when she was allegedly run over by a vehicle after confronting a burglary suspect.

June 25 was a landmark day in the history of Set the Captives Free Outreach Center, of Baltimore County. It was the day the church purchased the building formerly known as Seoul Plaza in Woodlawn.

The building at Security Square Mall provides the church with 160,000 square feet to grow their ministry. To say that the members of Set the Captives Free are excited is an understatement. They have been praying and giving towards this vision for a long time and God has made it happen.

Dr. Karen Bethea is the Pastor and founder of the church and for the past 17 years, she has led the congregation from meeting in a hotel room to purchasing this new facility. She says that God told her five years ago that the former Seoul Plaza would be their home.

When speaking about the process of obtaining the building she stated, “In all honesty I was content with our current building and had

Continued on D2

Courtesy Photo

Dr. Karen Bethea (right), Pastor, Set the Captives Free Outreach Center discusses relocation plans for the church with church leaders.

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Past Seven Days

136 2018 Total

Data as of June 6

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The Afro-American, July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018

Race and Politics Continued from D1

including his dying brother, a custody battle over his oldest child and a new marriage (his wife Devonna was two weeks pregnant), compelled Bell to release that prodigious academic load and forced him to delve deeper into spirit.

Ultimately, Yoga became a major part of his path to enlightenment (Bell recently completed another life changing chapter with a monthlong trip to India). Today, he is a Yogi, life coach, spiritualist and owner of the Sunlight and Yoga studio on Falls Road in Northeast Baltimore and founder of the Black Male Yoga Initiative (BMYI). With BMYI, Bell’s mission is really ministry, bringing the benefits of Yoga’s physical and spiritual pursuits to young Black men from Baltimore who typically grapple with very challenging life experiences.

That brings us to this past weekend in Urbana. Bell and Devonna, his amazing wife

invited me to this Yoga retreat and I didn’t really hesitate (although my only previous Yoga experience was with Bell at the Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle retreat in Philadelphia last November). I thought it would be a cool way to spend my birthday, but it turned out to be so much more.

The Bell’s indefatigable and fiercely independent five children (ages 3-10), were ubiquitous. So were the dozen Black boys, ages three to 17, who were invited to participate on the retreat and accompanied by male mentors, there were also three women from Morgan State University’s School of Public Health who attended (which was free for all of us due to Bell’s generosity). The first morning started with Yoga at 6 a.m., later we zip lined through the woods, which included a harrowing obstacle course, there was swimming, followed by a restorative Yoga session, and we ended the day

with an eye-opening (literally) night time hike through the woods (with no flashlights).

At the end of that day there were some tense moments when one of the older boys was vocally rebelling over giving up his cell phone. His behavior was corrected by Bell and the other men. But, maybe more importantly the young man who was acting out, was also counseled by one of the other older boys, a funny and charismatic 17-year old with a huge personality. It was the same boy, a natural leader who when we arrived at the camp and began the process of introducing ourselves, spoke openly and tearfully about how much he loved his mother. He spoke about how he knew he “was good” as long as he had her.

The next morning, the young man who had been disrespectful the night before came to breakfast with a brand new positive attitude as he entered the dining hall and loudly proclaimed

to all who had assembled “good morning.”

I’m confident the no tech Yoga retreat was an amazing experience for those young men, I know it was for me. I’m also confident Bell’s desire to introduce the tenets of Yoga that probably saved his life to others, could save the lives of countless other Black boys and men.

What a beautiful weekend (which would not have been possible without the extraordinary work of Devonna Bell and Chrissy Hudson, Changa’s assistant).

For me personally, Bell facilitated an opportunity to stretch my body, mind and spirit in new ways at a critical crossroads in my life (I’m publishing my first book, Baltimore After Freddie Gray, among other things).

I am grateful.

Sean Yoes is the AFRO’s Baltimore Editor.

Scholars

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Baltimore, according to Pugh.

Retired BCCC President Gordon F. May worked with a committee from BCPS, led by former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, chair of BCCC’s board of directors (and president of the University of Baltimore) and the Mayor’s Office, to develop the program. Pugh publicly announced the initiative in December 2017 as one of the city’s violence reduction programs and a part of her administration’s effort to find positive alternatives for Baltimore’s youth.

“Cost should never be a barrier to any student who aspires to a college degree or job training,” said Dr. May. “BCCC is pleased to partner with Mayor Pugh on the Mayor’s Scholars Program to make tuition-free education at BCCC a reality for all Baltimore City high school graduates.

As a proud anchor

“Cost should never be a barrier to any student who aspires to a college degree or job training.”

– Dr. Gordon F. May institution in West Baltimore, BCCC is fully committed to the education and career development of our students,” May added.

After earning an Associate Degree at BCCC, Mayor’s Scholars enrollees can attend Coppin State University through the recently launched Finish 4 Free program.

Beginning this fall, Coppin State is offering qualified BCCC graduates (2018 and beyond) who also graduated from a Baltimore City Public School, the opportunity to enroll tuition free for two years.

“This is an opportunity for our students to become a part of the economic fabric of our city as they continue to move forward with their education. In this way, we are clearing pathways for an entire generation of youth from the City of Baltimore,” Pugh said.

Pugh added that the longrange goal of the program is to transform Baltimore’s communities. “Our ultimate goal is to break the cycle of poverty and despair in many of our neighborhoods and provide our city students with opportunities previously unavailable to their older siblings, parents, and grandparents.”

Photo credit: Deborah Bailey

The inaugural class of the Mayor’s Scholars program and their families assembled at Baltimore City Community College (BCCC) for summer orientation this week.

Johnson

Continued from D1

advocate on behalf of the victims of crime, but must also pursue justice on behalf of those who are wrongly convicted when the appropriate evidence presents itself,” Mosby said.

For his part, Johnson seemed appreciative of the efforts made to clear his name.

“I would like to thank everyone involved in this investigation,” he said.

During the press conference Mosby revealed the Conviction Integrity Unit was currently reviewing roughly 70 cases, a small part of the roughly 900 charges tied to either the corrupt Gun Trace Task Force or body cam footage of police officers staging the discovery of

evidence that her office has determined would not hold up in court.

In fact, in September of 2017 Mosby dropped murder charges against another Baltimore man, Lamar Johnson (no relation to Jerome Johnson). He too had been wrongly convicted of murder and exonerated after another collaboration between Mosby’s office and the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project.

Amid all the celebration however, Jerome Johnson had a simple request. When asked what he wanted to do on his first day of freedom, he didn’t hesitate.

“I’d like to have a home cooked meal.”

Church

Continued from D1

many emotions about what God had spoken. Nonetheless, I was sure in what I heard God say and so I began to embrace it,” she said. “We went over and met with the owners of the building (previously), but things did not move forward.

We began to realize that this was God’s plan, but we had to wait for his timing.”

The new facility will be known as The O.W.E. Center; O.W.E. stands for Outreach, Worship and Education. The church took time over the past few years to do an in-depth study of the issues plaguing the community, and based on its findings, designed the O.W.E. center to address many of these concerns and hopefully increase the quality of life for those in the community.

Dr. Bethea is passionate about what will take place at the O.W.E. Center. “The vision of the O.W.E. Center is much more than a church relocating to a larger facility.

It is a movement to create a community center that will increase the total quality of life for the citizens of Baltimore,” she said. “It will house weekly worship as well as community outreach and educational programs.”

According to Dr. Bethea, many new initiatives will be implemented at the O.W.E. Center including a youth enrichment center, expansion of the current food pantry that feeds thousands of families each year, workforce development, financial education, a homeless hospitality suite, home ownership campaign, and a reentry program.

Some of these programs will solely be church driven, while others will be partnerships with existing organizations.

The church is actively preparing for this transition.

“We are in the process now of finalizing the construction phases and the transition from our current building to our new home,” said Dr. Bethea. “This transition will include closing down our current youth center and administrative offices building, which are located in another building walking distance from our sanctuary building. At this moment we have an idea but cannot give an exact move in date. One thing we can tell you for sure is that there will be a big open house and celebration that all will be invited to rejoice with us.”

Photo credit: T aya Graham

Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby worked with the MidAtlantic Innocence Project to facilitate Johnson’s (in striped polo shirt) release after being wrongly incarcerated for 30 years

July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018, The Afro-American

Who Loves Festivals?

Hello my dear fans and readers. How are you? I am doing well, thank you for asking.

Honey Child! Have I got something for you that will keep you happy; just check this out.

First of all, I want to wish each one of you a very happy and especially a safe 4th of July weekend. Looks like most of you will have a very long holiday weekend and vacation since July 4th is on a Wednesday. My goodness how crazy is that?

Okay, let’s get started with the summer festivals. Last Friday, I was at the kick-off of the “Liberty Live Festival,” which has made a few changes from the last four years. This year the festival was in the 4100 Block of Deer Park Road in Randallstown, Maryland.

The street was blocked off for about two blocks instead of in the parking lot. It was different, but I’m not sure whether I like it or not. I was set-up with my tent that Shorty and I struggled to put up by the bandstand area where I put up my displays and did autographs

The DipNic Festival founder and organizer, Charles “Rudy” Faison is doing it again for the 32nd year. He’s bringing you the best for adults only entertainment on July 14, rain or shine from 12 noon to8 p.m. at the Elks Camp Barrett, 1001 Chesterfield Road, Crownsville, Maryland. For more information keep reading, or call Rudy at 443-801-1100.

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Robert Wilson as the master of ceremonies.

This event will take place at Independent Church of God, 2302 Ainger Place, SE, Washington, DC. For more information, call 202-423-5210.

Speaking of church, a friend of mine who is a very talented and gifted vocalist and organist, Kendra Holt is looking for a position in a church as an organist, or a choir director in the Washington, DC area. If you know someone, or if you are interested in helping this musician, email her at Kendra_music@ hotmail.com. I thank you and she thanks you in advance.

Well, my dear friends, I do believe I have over stayed my welcome. I am Out of space.

But remember, if you need me, call me at 410833-9474 or email me at rosapryor@aol.com.

Until the next time, I’m musically yours.

The Sun Ra Arkestra performs at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), on July 7 in concert starting at 7 p.m. The BMA is located 10 Art Museum Drive at N. Charles and 31st St. The Sun Ra Arkestra was founded by legendary experimental jazz pioneer, Sun Ra and performs with Marshall Allen. If you are a jazz lover, this is it! For more information, call 443-573-1701 and tell them “Rambling Rose” sent you. for my books. Honey Child! When I and my “Boo-Boo” finished setting up, I was ready to take a nap and get my oxygen tank. The rest of the venders were set up on both sides of the street; it was a narrow space, but over 300 folks came with their water coolers and folding chairs and enjoyed the band. DJ Mike Jones kept the music jumping when the band was on their break. They danced, partied and ate. My goodness gracious! Girlfriend! The food vendors were awesome. There were at least five vendors of food; whatever you like, they had it. The band, “Rhythm Method” was totally out–of-site! July 6, the Spindles will be on stage. I will see you there from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. Stop by and say hello to me. This festival is free and open to the public.

My dear friend, Bilal Ali, the founder and CEO of Bilal Ali Productions is presenting his Smooth Jazz and R&B 4th of July Dinner Show, July 7. The event is at the Quality Inn, 800 Belmont Avenue in Windsor Mill, Maryland, featuring Vivian Owens-Taylor, Alyce Walker and DJ Fresh. For more information, call Bilal at 443-540-7797.

Don’t forget about Baltimore’s

Pennsylvania Avenue Bakery. The Avenue Bakery, owned by James Hamlin is having his monthly live entertainment concert in the courtyard of his business located on the corner of Pennsylvania Ave. and Baker St., on July 7.

The concert is 4 p.m.-8 p.m. It is free and open to the public.

The Baltimore/Washington One Caribbean Carnival is a spirited celebration that draws thousands of spectators to Baltimore to take part in the festivities. The carnival begins July 14 with a beautiful, colorful parade; an almost endless line of costumes, dancing and singing starting at Lake Clifton Park. The carnival continues the next day with live entertainment from bands, dancers and drummers. The festival also offers a variety of delicious foods and arts & crafts.

On July 8 at 4 p.m., the 22nd anniversary celebration of the Nu Gospel Special takes place. The concert features the Zion Hill Gospel Singers, Big Mike and the Crusaders, Bishop Luke Saunders and the Sensational Stars, Katie and the Angels, Big John and the Gospel Sound. Also performing are special guests, Christianaires of Baltimore, with Rev.

Dr. Elaine Simon, the matriarch, founder and organizer of the Baltimore/ Washington Caribbean Carnival, is combining the Washington Carnival with the Baltimore Carnival, July 14 and15 starting at 12 noon, at Lake Clifton Park, 2701 St. Lo Drive, Baltimore. For more information, keep reading or call 410-3622957.

afro.com •Your History •Your Community • Your News AFRO’S GIVEAWAY Free Day Guest Passes for Seniors 65 and older to Global Prayer Convocation

Dean, Rev. Cecelia Williams Bryant Thursday, July 19 - Saturday, July 21

9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Baltimore Convention Center 1 W Pratt St, Baltimore, MD 21201 Guest passes do not include ticketed events

To receive passes contact Diane W. Hocker at (410) 554-8243 or send an email to dhocker@afro.com

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The Afro-American, July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018

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n June 28, the AFRO Newspapers held the kick off for the 2018 Clean Block campaign where leaders and members of community organizations gathered to continue an

84 year tradition for the city and the venerable newspaper. Community leaders representing their respective neighborhoods included Peggy Scarlet, Roseanne Thomas, Denise Deleaver, Diane Williams, Kevin Dorn, and Miranda Foy-Godbolt. The event was held at the AFRO’s headquarters, 1531 S. Edgewood St. To register your block and get free cleaning supplies, call or email Diane Hocker before July 12, dhocker@afro. com, 410-554-8243.

Roseanne Thomas, Diane Hocker, Miranda Foy-Goldbolt, Diane Williams and Peggy Scarlet

Kevin Dorn

Miranda Foy-Goldbolt, Saint Stephens AME Church Community

Roundtable introductions and discussions

Peggy Scarlet and Roseanne Thomas, Rosemont Community

Lenora Howze (center), director of advertising for the AFRO brought greetings and welcomed the community representatives Denise Deleaver, Ashburton Community

Donated supplies

Photos by Keyon Smith

Diane Williams, Oliver Community

LaTasha Owens, Kyle Ogle, and Denise DeLeaver listened while Diane W. Hocker, project manager, gave the history and goals for AFRO’s Clean Block