Author Archives: Melissa Jones

Dr. A. Skipp Sanders, interim executive director of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, is the son of a Baltimore City Police officer and a factory worker. Despite his blue-collar upbringing he says that education was a vital component of the backbone of his working class family. His mother’s ambition to pursue a degree in education […]

The battle continues over the future of nearly half the city’s recreational centers. Gregory Baylor, director of Recreation and Parks, and Recreation Bureau Chief Bill Tyler met with residents at the Chick Webb Recreation Center on Nov. 30 in an attempt to gain community support for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake’s plan to hand over the […]

Hundreds of students and alumni of Morgan State University gathered in the Student Center Theater on Nov. 11 to witness the unveiling of a civil rights exhibit commemorating student led sit-ins and protests dating back to 1947. City and State officials addressed the packed auditorium and congratulated the students from the past who paved the […]

Baltimore residents will head to the polls on Nov. 8 to select the city’s next mayor, city council president, comptroller and city council members. However, lackluster preliminary reports on early voting participation provided by the Baltimore City Board of Elections indicate a low turnout expectancy for the general election. Armstead Jones Sr., election director for […]

Baltimore City recreational centers are facing drastic budget cuts that may force a large number of centers to close. For fiscal year 2012 the city faced a $60 million deficit for the cost to maintain city services. In budget documents, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said “lower revenues and rising costs have created large budget shortfalls over […]

Catalina Byrd is running for mayor in the general election on Nov. 8. The lesser known challenger will face incumbent Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and a 67-year stronghold by the democratic party on the highest elected office in the city. A win for her on election day would mean that at least 15,000 of the 372,000 registered […]

During the last session of the General Assembly, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. proposed a merger between one of Maryland’s leading research institutions and the state’s only public academic, health, law and human services university. That combination that would yield a mega-institution serving over 40,000 students and an estimated annual operating budget of […]

The life of the party. Thoughtful. Funny. Compassionate. That is how family and friends will remember Edward Zarius Watson Jr. In an era when success and achievement for African Americans was an act of defiance, Watson defied all odds and soared to exceptional heights. On Oct. 15 after battling a series of debilitating illnesses for […]