By Deborah Bailey, Special to the AFRO More than a century after the first anti-lynching law was introduced in Congress, President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law. On March 29 lynching became a federal crime for the first time in U.S. history. The Emmett till Anti-Lynching Act, passed by Congress on […]
Author Archives: Deborah Bailey Special to the AFRO
Posted inNational News
President Biden signs Congressional Gold Medal Honor into law for women of 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion
By Deborah Bailey, Special to the AFRO President Joe Biden signed into law this week legislation passed by Congress last month awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to the Black Women members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. The iconic women’s military unit known as the “Six Triple Eight” of the Women’s Army Corps served […]
Posted inBaltimore News
Diane Bell-McKoy leads Baltimore to bring the Black community together
By Deborah Bailey, Special to the AFRO Long before the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray ignited Baltimore’s volcano of protracted racial inequity, Diane Bell-McKoy was calling on and calling out the business community to end policies and programs reinforcing the structural racism that choked the city’s Black population. “Structural racism is borne out by […]
Posted inNational News
Past national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Dr. Thelma T. Daley, takes the lead of NCNW
By Deborah Bailey, Special to the AFRO Thelma Daley, Ed.D, was born to become President of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), a role she assumed on Feb. 2 of this year, immediately after the resignation of Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Ph.D., on Jan. 31 of this year. Daley’s leadership of professional and women’s organizations […]
Posted inNational News
6888th: Black women WWII heroes finally get Congressional Gold Medal
By Deborah Bailey, Special to the AFRO The first Black female soldiers stationed in Europe will finally receive the homecoming they deserved after serving in World War II. On Feb. 28, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 422-0 to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the Black women of the 6888th of the Central Postal […]
Posted inBaltimore News
Mayor Brandon Scott: A year later
By Deborah Bailey, Special to the AFRO Sworn into office in a small, socially-distanced ceremony in December 2020, the twin-pandemics brought on by Covid-19 and escalating violence stared Brandon Scott fully in the face on day one. Scott had no time for a classic “honeymoon period” generally afforded a newly minted mayor. Instead, Scott was […]
Posted inWashington D.C. News
City, health leaders, break ground for Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center
By Deborah Bailey, Special to the AFRO Closing the gap in healthcare services in Southeast, D.C. is in reach at last. A long-awaited groundbreaking for a new hospital on the grounds of St. Elizabeths has finally come. Mayor Muriel Bowser, joined members of the D.C. Council, United Health, George Washington and Children’s National Hospital leadership, […]
Posted inAfro Briefs
Supplemental Education Funding submitted in Hogan’s FY 2023 budget request
By Deborah BaileySpecial to the AFRO Bowing to pressure from education advocates and Maryland General Assembly members, Governor Larry Hogan sent a supplemental funding request of $139.9 million to the State’s FY 2023 budget to fully fund the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future (Kirwan Commission) Education Reform plan. The majority of Hogan’s supplemental education funding request, […]
Posted inReligion
Black Catholic Messenger brings young, Black Catholic voices and perspectives
By Deborah Bailey, Special to the AFRO In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic the pace of the world transitioned from frantic to still, allowing a small group of young Black Catholics to see even more clearly what had been evident for years. Their voice was too often muted, adjusted, omitted even for the […]
Posted inWashington D.C. News
A pioneer in journalism, Harry McAlpin became the first Black White House Correspondent
By Deborah BaileySpecial to the AFRO Seventy-eight years ago this month, the White press corps changed. Harry McAlpin became the first Black reporter to attend a White House press briefing in February 1944. Born in St. Louis, Mo., in July, 1906, McAlpin studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin and pursued journalism. McAlpin worked for […]
Posted inNEWS
Alice Dunnigan: First Black woman accredited to many press corps
By Deborah BaileySpecial to the AFRO More than half a century before Yamiche Alcindor covered the White House for the PBS NewsHour and before April Ryan’s White House coverage for Urban Radio Networks there was Alice Dunnigan. Dunnigan represented the Black press at the highest levels and paved the way for scores of journalists who […]
Posted inBaltimore News
District joins Baltimore and 12 other cities for groundbreaking WH initiative
By Deborah BaileySpecial to the AFRO The District of Columbia has joined Baltimore and 12 other cities across the U.S. in a groundbreaking White House initiative to demonstrate the need for community-based violence intervention strategies to break the cycle of violent crime that has spiked during the COVID-19 Pandemic. “People care about safety, they care […]
