Author Archives: Sean Yoes

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, which began Dec. 1955 propelled the boycott’s leader, 26-year old Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., into the national spotlight and sparked the American civil rights movement. However, more than 20 years earlier Baltimore’s Black community organized protests to begin the eradication of one of the city’s main pillars of segregation in […]

As I pulled up to the Target store at Mondawmin Mall in West Baltimore Jan. 6, I was reminded of the store’s imminent demise by the nearly empty parking lot. A few months ago, prior to the announcement from Target’s corporate office that the Mondawmin store would close Feb. 3, a desolate parking lot here […]

Frigid temperatures in the Baltimore area over the last several days combined with a lack of heat in several Baltimore City Public School buildings has compelled the Baltimore Teachers Union (BTU), to call for the closure of city schools, until the heating issues can be resolved. On Jan. 3, a hand delivered letter was sent […]

1,005… In the last three years 1,005 people have been added to the murder list in Baltimore. Several homicides from previous years (for example, the shooting of William Wallace in 1995, which led to his death in September was counted in the 2017 total), always wind up being counted towards any given year, if you […]

From the outside, it is impossible to fully grasp the day to day inner workings of Baltimore City Hall from the perspective of the woman currently sitting in the mayor’s chair, Catherine E. Pugh. However, Mayor Pugh has been confronted with some titanic challenges during her first year in office and has been forced to […]

Reginald F. Lewis has been an omnipresent and enigmatic figure on the Baltimore landscape for decades since his death in 1993. Baltimore native Reginald F. Lewis was the first Black American to launch a billion dollar American enterprise. (Courtesy Image) His name is emblazoned upon The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History […]

In October, I wrote a Race and Politics column titled, “The NFL is Dead To Me.” It still is. But, I feel compelled to report that a lot of White men, egged on by Donald J. Trump, may be really killing the NFL, a league owned primarily by White Republican men. During last weekend’s game […]

Det. Sean Suiter was laid to rest Nov. 29, at Mt. Pleasant church in East Baltimore, two weeks after somebody shot him in the head at point blank range (allegedly with his own gun), in a West Baltimore neighborhood notorious for violence. He died the next day. Despite a reward of at least $215,000, Suiter’s […]

“Change doesn’t happen overnight,” said Eric Booker, president of the Broadway East Community Association, from the new office of Sen. Nathaniel McFadden (D-45), at 1812 E. Ashland Ave., in East Baltimore. Booker, a member of the Baltimore City Democratic State Central Committee representing the 45th District, is a disciple of McFadden, and the East Baltimore […]

When I entered Charmington’s coffee shop in Remington Nov. 20, Natalie Ibu looked like a lot of the progressive Black women I know and consider allies; with her head wrapped and nose pierced, she rocked a t-shirt emblazoned with the images of iconic Black actresses Janet Hubert and Phylicia Rashad, a.k.a, “Auntie Viv,” and “Claire […]

Aug. 12, 1958, around 10 a.m., 57 of the greatest musicians on earth gathered at 17 East 126th St., in front of a Harlem brownstone in New York City for a photograph. Among those assembled: Thelonius Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Horace Silver, Lester “Prez” Young, Maxine Sullivan, Count Basie, Art Blakey, Coleman Hawkins, Mary Lou Williams, […]