November 11, 2017 - November 11, 2017, The Afro-American A1 PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY EDITION
Volume 127 No. 33
MARCH 24, 2018 - MARCH 30, 2018
Baltimore
Funding For Prospective Black Marijuana Growers Cut
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Prince George’s
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Photo courtesy of Larry Jones
Annual Luncheon Honors Women in Goverment
Paris Deshawn Brown (right), embracing his sister (left). Brown was the first teen to be fatally shot in 2018 in Washington, D.C. This is his story.
Gun Violence in America (Part 1 of 2)
Too Many Dying Too Young By Alexa Imani Spencer Howard University News Service This is the first of a two-part series on the murders of teenagers throughout the U.S. While the nation’s attention is focused on deaths in school shootings, most teenage murders occur daily in African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods with little fanfare or public debate. As 2017 came to an end in the nation’s capital, the good news of the preceding 365 days included the city’s
declining crime rate. The mayor and other city officials proudly pointed to a 15 percent drop in homicides for the previous year and a 22 percent decline for all violent crime for the same period. Sentiments quickly changed 30 days later. Within the first month of the new year, four teenagers had been murdered—Paris DeShawn Brown, 19; Davon Fisher, 17; Stephen Slaughter, 14; and Taiyania Aaliyah Thompson, 16. America is mourning the recent deaths of 17 killed in a Florida high school shooting, one of the deadliest in history. Their deaths have prompted
a national conversation about gun control and how to keep children safe in schools. Lost in the debate is the fact that a similar number of children and teenagers are shot and killed every week. According to the data website Statistica, more than 20 Americans between the ages of 13 and 19 are murdered every week. Instead of victims of mass murders, they are single, solitary deaths. The examples are in cities across America. In Los Angeles, 15-year-
How the Nation Will Mark the 50th Anniversary of King’s Assassination By Lisa Snowden Special to the AFRO It’s been almost 50 years since the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. To mark the occasion, and to highlight the work toward racial justice that remains, the National Council of Churches, along with partners like The National African American Clergy Network, the Mennonite Central Committee, and Religions for Peace, will be holding a Rally to End Racism in Washington, D.C. from April 3-5. The three days of events will include a service at St. Sophia Greek Orthodox
Continued on A4
AFRO File photo
Organizers around the nation will be commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther Jr. with marches, book readings and panel discussions. King was transported on a farm wagon drawn by two mules through the streets of Atlanta after his death in 1968.
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old Miracle McGowan was killed January 12 in a driveby shooting as she and three other people sat in a car in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood. In Dallas, Natalie Hernandez, 14, killed Continued on A6
UMBC: Still on Top, and Ahead of the Curve By J. K. Schmid Special to the AFRO On Friday something impossible happened: No. 16 seed UMBC beat overall No. 1 seed University of Virginia in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. The whole point of March Madness as spectacle is that anything could happen, and despite all efforts to keep the tournament fair and competitive, ‘anything’ rarely does happen, especially in the first round, and especially in the No. 16 to No. 1 matchup. But if the NCAA is fair, then a UMBClike victory was all but inevitable. What’s so special about UMBC? The AFRO interviewed UMBC’s 26-year president Freeman A. Hrabowski, III to listen to him explain why this is happening here, and why this is happening now. “It really is young people inspiring the nation by showing them that their sense of self and their commitment to being all that they could lead to something happening that all the experts said wasn’t possible, and that is a part of what we’ve done at the university,” Hrabowski told the AFRO of the Retrievers win. Continued on A5
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