Members of the Our DC activist group staged two protests Oct. 15, one to highlight the findings of a report from the University of California, Berkeley, that found that taxpayers lose when fast food workers are forced to seek public assistance to take care of their families and another to demand that companies increase worker […]
Author Archives: Zachary Lester
AFRO Staff Writer
Posted inBaltimore News
Darin Atwater’s Soulful Symphony Kicks Off New Season
The leaves are turning, temperatures are dipping and Darin Atwater’s Soulful Symphony is preparing to debut its 2013/2014 season at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore. To fans of good music, all is right with the world. Atwater is the uber-composer who years ago created a musical phenomenon by blending a variety of musical genres in […]
Posted inAfro Briefs
50 Years Later, Civil Rights Activist Dorie Ladner Reflects on Freedom’s Struggle
Dorie Ladner was a 21 year old SNCC volunteer who had been among a group of students who had attended a meeting with Medgar Evers the night before he was assassinated. John Lewis was an activist who had been raised in a small Alabama town. Frank Smith had faced death threats registering voters in Mississippi. […]
Posted inNational News
March on Washington 2013 Kicks Off at Lincoln Memorial
( August 24, 2013) Final preparations were underway for the March on Washington 2013 at about 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 24, as more than 3,000 people and several dozen members of the media made their way to the Lincoln Memorial, where some of the nation’s preeminent civil rights leaders were expected to take the stage later […]
Posted inWashington D.C. News
Musicians Make a Joyful Noise Inside, Outside Church
On most Saturday nights, Ignatius Perry Jr. and his band mate, Reginald Payne, are partying at clubs in the Baltimore/Washington area and on most Sunday mornings, they are in church. In both situations, they’re gigging. For years, Perry, 22, and Payne, 23, the keyboardist and bassist, respectively, for the Baltimore-based modern jazz fusion band Tribe […]
Posted inBaltimore News
Event Draws More Than 40,000 to Inner Harbor
Madeline Porter is a self-confessed nerd and while being a nerd has at times left her feeling like an outsider, that was not the case recently. She was among more than 40,000 nerds at the Baltimore Convention Center for Otakon 2013, the 20th annual celebration of Far East Asian popular culture. For three days, Aug. […]
Posted inPrince George's County News
Murder of Charles Flowers Senior Amber Stanley Remains Unsolved
It was the kind of crime that leaves people feeling that no place is safe, that the one space where everbody should feel safe—home—is vulnerable to invasion at any time. It was Aug. 22, 2012, a Wednesday—warm, as summer nights are in suburban Maryland in late summer. Amber D. Stanley, an honor student at Charles […]
Posted inWashington D.C. News
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Scaffolded
Renovation is underway at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Northwest Washington to remove the controversial “drum major” inscription from the side of the structure. On a recent afternoon, the 30-foot statue, a likeness of King with arms folded emerging from a “Stone of Hope” was surrounded by scaffolding, some […]
Posted inWashington D.C. News
Handful of Concerned Citizens Picket Beyonce’s Verizon Center Concert
D.C.-area activist Rocky Twyman had one message for the thousands of people he encountered July 29 in front of the Verizon Center: Beyonce Knowles is a demon and if you attend her concert, you are consorting with evil. The mission started earlier that day when Twyman gathered at the White House with several other citizens […]
Posted inBaltimore News
Family Reunions Now Big Business
Once upon a time, families gathered in Grandma’s backyard or at a park for reunions. They ate hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad and watermelon as the children played tag and the old folks reminisced about family reunions past. Today’s reunions are likely to be fancier gatherings that take months to plan and cost tens of […]
Posted inWashington D.C. News
Ex-D.C. Councilmember Michael Brown Pleads Guilty to Accepting Bribes
Michael A. Brown, a former member of the D.C. Council who was once a rising star in local politics, pleaded guilty to accepting $55,000 from FBI agents posing as business owners seeking a government contracting advantage, authorities said. The plea allows Brown, son of the late Clinton cabinet member Ron Brown, to avoid the minimum […]
Posted inAfro Briefs
June Marks Black Music Month
Get ready to hit the Internet or the local box for show tickets. June is Black Music Month and venues across the nation are presenting shows ranging from blues to gospel to hip hop to jazz to R&B to give aficionados—or those who are just interested in getting their dance on—a place celebrate. Formally called […]