By Sean Yoes On a frigid Saturday night in Ashland, Virginia, several members of the Brown Grove Preservation Group gathered at Around the Table, a Black-owned soul food restaurant in the area. As they dined on fried catfish, pork chops, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, and other southern delicacies, several members of the group, who […]
Author Archives: Sean Yoes
AFRO Baltimore Editor
Posted inArts & Culture, ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT, ENTERTAINMENT, Music, National News, NEWS
The greatness, genius of Marvin Gaye
He is as big an influence on modern performers across genres as anybody who has had a voice over the last 50 years. (Courtesy shutterstock) By Sean Yoes Special to the AFRO April 1, 1984, felt like the cruelest April Fools prank I had ever heard; Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr., had been gunned down by […]
Posted in!Front Page
Black Supergroups of the 1970s
Son Reynolds, Keith Holland, Maurice White, Philip Bailey, James Pankow, Robert Lamm on stage for NBC Today ShowChicago and Earth, Wind and Fire Concert, Rockefeller Center, New York, July, 2005. (Courtesy Shutterstock) By Sean Yoes AFRO Senior Reporter syoes@afro.com How do you name the greatest Rhythm and Blues bands of the 1970’s, arguably the greatest […]
Posted inARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Soundtrack of the 1970s
Soundtrack of the 1970s: Shaft, Car Wash, and The Jeffersons By Sean Yoes Special to the AFRO A significant chapter in the history of Black American culture was the so-called “Blaxploitation” era of American film anchored mainly in the 1970’s. And of course a big part of any movie, especially a Black movie is the […]
Posted inNEWS
I’ll Be Around
Sean Yoes By Sean Yoes AFRO Senior Reporter syoes@afro.com June is Black Music Month and in next week’s AFRO we’ll be presenting our monthly special edition “We’re Still Here,” that will focus on Black music of the 1970’s. No other cultural phenomena has had a greater impact on me as a Creative than the music […]
Posted inNEWS
Tulsa massacre was no secret to Black Press
Sean Yoes By Sean Yoes AFRO Senior Reporter syoes@afro.com One hundred years ago this week thousands of White terrorists descended upon the wildly prosperous Black community of Tulsa Oklahoma known as “Black Wall Street” and murdered hundreds of Black men, women and children. They displaced about 10 thousand Black residents when they burned (and bombed) […]
Posted inNEWS
Chauncey the Trainer is a lifesaver
Sean Yoes By Sean Yoes AFRO Senior Reporter syoes@afro.com Nine-thousand, nine-hundred, seventy-one is a lot of any one thing in just about any category. However, 9,971 sit-ups in an hour seems virtually impossible. But, not for Chauncey Whitehead, the man known as “Chauncey the Trainer.” In December 2003, Whitehead grabbed a space on the floor […]
Posted inLIFE & STYLE
Going vegan: I’m not quite there…yet
By Sean Yoes AFRO Senior Reporter syoes@afro.com I love to cook. In fact, there are few things in life that relax me more than when I have the opportunity to take my time and cook the things that I love for the people I love. And I like to show off the finished products, especially […]
Posted inNEWS
The eateries of Old Black Baltimore
Sess’ restaurant, which was located at 1639 Division Street in Old West Baltimore, was arguably the top Black restaurant of the Jim Crow era. This image was from an ad in the AFRO (circa 1945). According to historian Philip Merrill, “They kept an ad in the Afro and the commercial image of their restaurant was […]
Posted inReligion
Feeding the Spirit
(By SeventyFour_Shutterstock) By Sean Yoes AFRO Senior Reporter syoes@afro.com God is Great, God is Good, Let us thank Him For our food, Amen. This is one of the first prayers most of us learn as small children, to give thanks to God for the food that nourishes our bodies and keeps us alive. And perhaps […]
Posted inNEWS
As COVID ticks down, violence ticks up
Sean Yoes By Sean Yoes AFRO Senior Reporter syoes@afro.com The night of May 10, violence visited an Anne Arundel County community in a devastating way. Three adults were gunned down and a child was seriously wounded as a result of an alleged domestic dispute in Maryland City, adjacent to Fort Meade. “This has to stop. […]
Posted inNEWS
Black and Brown women held without bail: The ongoing ordeal of ‘Ms. Mary’
By Sean Yoes AFRO Senior Reporter syoes@afro.com “Ms. Mary” is a 50-year old Black woman riddled with mental and physical infirmities, who resides on the streets of downtown Baltimore typically in the posh Harbor East community. And although the AFRO is not using her full name to protect her identity, she is at once anonymous […]