By AFRO Staff
From breaking news to entertainment, from sports to arts and culture, the
AFRO’s summer 2022 reporting team covered it all. The D.C. region
encompasses a unique combination of local, national, and international stories
as both the home to 700,000 DC. Residents as well as the seat of U.S.
government. Our nimble team also brought you “hyper-local” D.C., Maryland,
and Northern Virginia stories, news from our Black organizations, our HBCU
sports teams, and the Black perspective on critical issues like behavioral
health, housing, and criminal justice. Join the AFRO in saluting our D.C. crew
who are united in our love for authentic Black journalism. Each of the featured
writers took assignments for the AFRO this summer as a labor of love, all the
while excelling in their chosen professions.
Mark Gray has been an award-winning journalist for more than 30 years. He has previously worked at ESPN, Sirius/XM, CBS Radio (D.C.), and Radio One. Gray is a former sports editor for the Atlanta Daily World and an NBA contributor for Sporting News. Gray has worked as a national radio sports announcer for Heritage Sports Radio Network and is currently the host of the SportsGroove 2.0 daily podcast and play-by-play announcer for their “Super 7 Series” of HBCU Classic Events including the national radio voice of the Bayou Classic and the CIAA Basketball Tournament. He is also the managing editor of Multimedia Content for MLBbro.com and the HBCU Sports Nation for SMASH Entertainment.
Hamil R. Harris a.k.a. H.R. Harris, is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist who contributes to the Washington Post, the Washington Informer, USA Today, and Religion Unplugged in addition to the AFRO. Harris currently serves as a lecturer at the Cathy Hughes School of Communication at Howard University. He has been an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland College Park and a former instructor and director of innovation for the Morgan State University School of Global Journalism and Communications. In addition to his archive of more than 1,000 stories, Harris is a published book and journal author.
Reginald Williams has a long history with the AFRO-American Newspapers, having previously served as the D.C. Editor. He’s the author of “A marginalized voice: Devalued, Dismissed, Disenfranchised, and Demonized.” Williams is the founder of Seeding to Harvest Group, a collaboration of entrepreneurs committed to planting seeds into impoverished communities. He is the curator and host of “Creating the Narrative”, a podcast that challenges unchallenged paradigms. He served eight years as an advisory board member for the Diverse Male Student Initiative, an organization of Prince George’s Community College, committed to supporting the academic journey of its male students. He is currently a board member of D.A.D.S (Depression and Daily Solutions), a platform that provides men with safe spaces for difficult discussions.
Rev. Samuel Williams, Jr. teaches 11th grade English at Archbishop Carroll Catholic High School in NE Washington, D.C. He is an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) and men’s ministry coordinator for St. Paul AME Church NW D.C. He is co-president of the Riverdale Park Arts organization based in Riverdale, Md. Williams holds the distinction of being the first African-American author ever to write a major Sherlock Holmes novel, “Anomalous: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes featuring Jack Johnson and Alphonse Capone” published in November 2012 by MX Publishing located in London, England.
Cara Williams is an associate producer at WBAL-TV 11 News in Baltimore. She is a retired, veteran Baltimore Police Officer, and recent graduate of the Morgan State University School of Global Journalism. Williams anchored the AFRO’s D.C. and Prince George’s primary profiles of elected officials, but her joy is in entertainment reporting, where she featured several local and national Black artists including her recent profile of Grammy nominee, Anthony Anderson.
Help us Continue to tell OUR Story and join the AFRO family as a member – subscribers are now members! Join here!