Another chapter in the sex, drugs and corruption scandal at the Baltimore City Detention Center unfolded last week, as five former correctional officers, an inmate and a drug supplier entered guilty pleas, and another correctional officer was sentenced, for their roles in a racketeering conspiracy run by the Black Guerilla Family. The city was rocked […]
Author Archives: Zenitha Prince
Special to the AFRO
Posted inAfro Briefs
Beloved President of New Orleans’ Xavier University Announces Retirement
Norman Francis, President of Xavier University. Norman Francis, 83, the nation’s longest-tenured university president, has announced he is retiring from the helm of Xavier University, a historically Black Catholic institution in New Orleans, effective June 30, 2015. “After nearly 47 years, I believe that the time has come to take the brightly burning torch turned […]
Posted inBaltimore News
Frederick Douglass Portrait: First Black Face to Grace Maryland Gov.’s Mansion
Portrait of Frederick Douglass, unveiled on September 15, 2014 , that will grace on the wall’s of the (Maryland) Governor’s Mansion. Maryland history will be made Sept. 15 when a portrait of Frederick Douglass – the first likeness of an African American to grace the walls of the governor’s residence in Annapolis – is unveiled. […]
Posted inWashington D.C. News
Derailed Baltimore CSX Project Gives D.C. Opponents Hope for a Similar Outcome
Local opponents of a plan to expand the Virginia Avenue Tunnel in Southeast Washington, D.C., are taking courage from the derailment of another CSX Transportation project in Baltimore. On Aug. 28, Maryland Transportation Secretary James T. Smith Jr. announced that plans for a CSX rail cargo facility in West Baltimore had been squashed, and the […]
Posted inReligion
Dr. Jazz at Jericho II
In 1997, Temple University history professor Bettye Collier-Thomas published Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons, a groundbreaking examination of the contributions of African-American women preachers to the church. Modern-day “Daughter of Thunder,” the Rev. Dr. Jasmin Sculark, said reading that text helped her understand her ministerial birthright, similar to what she inherited […]
Posted inBaltimore News
Md. National Guard Operates in the Red
Brig. Gen. Linda Singh, Army commander for the Maryland National Guard. Drills for soldiers in the Maryland National Guard and other units across the country have come to a screeching halt due to an unforeseen budget deficit. Officials at the National Guard Bureau have identified a $101 million shortfall of federal funds, and they say, […]
Posted inSports
Ravens Fire Ray Rice, NFL Suspends Him Indefinitely
(Updated 9/9/2014) The Baltimore Ravens fired Ray Rice Sept. 8 after the emergence of additional video showing the running back punching his then-fiancée in an Atlantic City casino elevator on Feb. 15. The Ravens had initially thrown their support behind Rice when the incident became public earlier in the year. But the surveillance footage released […]
Posted inBaltimore News
Trio Sentenced for Robbing 7 Baltimore 7-11 Stores in 8 Days
One of three men who last year engaged in a summer stealing spree targeting 7-Eleven stores across Baltimore was recently sentenced to almost 20 years in prison. On Sept. 6, U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles Jr. sentenced 37-year-old Gary Cordell Howard, of Baltimore, to 235 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised […]
Posted inHealth
Study: Racial Discrimination Fuels Obesity in Minority Communities
Luis Rivera, an experimental social psychologist at Rutgers University-Newark Exposure to racial discrimination may explain why members of some minority groups disproportionately suffer from obesity and being overweight, a new study purports. Led by Luis Rivera, an experimental social psychologist at Rutgers University-Newark, the study found that Blacks and Latinos are routinely subjected to negative […]
Posted inAfro Briefs
Ferguson Police Officers to Wear Cameras
Police officers wear what appear to be body cameras as they hold the line against protesters gathered at the police station during a rally in Ferguson, Mo. on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2014 for Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old who was fatally shot by a white police officer three weeks earlier. (AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, […]
Posted inAfro Briefs
Justice Department Launches Investigation into Ferguson Police Practices
Attorney General Eric Holder, center, accompanied by Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Division Molly Moran, left, and Ronald Davis, director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014, to announce the Justice Department’s civil rights division will […]
Posted inReligion, Washington D.C. News
Dr. Jazz at Jericho
Rev. Dr. Jasmin Sculark In Laventille, Trinidad, dreams are hard to come by. For its residents, the beauty of the Caribbean Sea just beyond them and the towering edifices of the nearby capital of Port-of-Spain belie their hardscrabble existence in the hillside ghetto that is rife with poverty, crime and gang warfare. In this place, […]
