Author Archives: Sean Yoes

Last week, a consent decree between the City of Baltimore and the Department of Justice was finalized. It is a legally binding agreement that is supposed to enforce reforms to the Baltimore Police Department, which was subject to one of the most damning “patterns or practice” reports by the DOJ in recent memory. Sean Yoes […]

President Obama delivered his farewell address to the nation, the last major speech of his historic presidency this week in his adopted home of Chicago in front of more than 18,000 rapturous supporters. Towards the end of his speech, emotion illuminated his famously placid countenance and the President shed a tear as he thanked his […]

With a little more than two weeks before the 45th President of the United States takes office, there continues to be much gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands here and around the globe. Perhaps for good reason; Donald Trump continues his seemingly naive (and some argue treasonous) infatuation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and […]

`It feels like deja vu all over again…’ Sean Yoes (Courtesy Photo) At the conclusion of what in the minds of most was a horrific 2015, the year of the Baltimore uprising after the death of Freddie Gray, many of us hoped and prayed things would get better in 2016. Remember in 2015, even before […]

On December 1, just before I went on the air for First Edition, to have a conversation with two administrators and two students from the beleaguered Renaissance Academy High School (BCPS is considering shutting the school down, again), I received a jarring text from Nikkia Rowe, the school’s principal. “We had another student fall to […]

Around 1979-1980, as the Reagan era was being ushered in, I remember the Baltimore Sun beginning a series on the paper’s front page on the rise of hate groups in America, complete with a photo of a burning cross and a hooded Klansman. I remember as a young Black boy, despite the protection and love my […]

I had the opportunity to discuss the plight of America’s Black working class, something I wrote about in last week’s column, during the first hour of “AFRO First Edition,” on Nov. 17, when I spoke with Gerald Taylor, author of the new report, “Unmade in America: Industrial Flight and the Decline of Black Communities,” excerpts […]

After 11 years away from the spotlight Dave Chapelle, arguably the most incisive comedian in the world since Richard Pryor, made his triumphant return to the spotlight as host of “Saturday Night Live,” just a few days after the world was turned upside down with the election of Donald John Trump. Chapelle’s timing (as usual) […]

It’s never been more difficult for me to craft a cogent narrative for this column than at this moment, in the wake of what I believed was incomprehensible; perhaps the most unqualified person ever to win a major party nomination for President of the United States, Donald John Trump, is going to be the next […]

Probably not since the great Pike’s Peak Gold Rush of 1859, has Colorado enjoyed an economic boom sparked (pun intended) by the legalization of marijuana in January 2014. According to the Colorado Department of Revenue, the state took in $996,184,788 in medical and recreational marijuana sales in 2015. In the first five months of 2016 […]