Category: Baltimore Community

By AFRO Staff Baltimore, like many American cities, continues to grapple with violence and crime. National Night Out, the annual community building campaign in cities and towns in all 50 states, which promotes police-community relations, is typically a welcome reprieve for many Baltimore neighborhoods. On Aug. 7, several communities across the city, including Park Heights […]

By Deborah Bailey, Special to the AFRO The elders got things started Saturday afternoon on Park Heights Avenue as a diverse rainbow of community members and supporters prepared to march in celebration of Baltimore Ceasefire 365’s first year anniversary. “I like that this march started with our elder men leading the charge,” Williams, Ceasefire supporter […]

By Deborah Bailey, Special to the AFRO When the architects of Baltimore Ceasefire 365 announced plans for the first ceasefire weekend in the hot, violent summer of 2017, some laughed, and others shrugged their shoulders in resignation. Few grasped the concept that city residents could pull together and transform the culture of guns and murder gripping […]

By Sean Yoes, AFRO Baltimore Editor, syoes@afro.com The death on July 19 of Taylor Hayes, the seven-year-old girl who courageously fought for her life for weeks after she was hit with bullets likely meant for somebody else while riding in the back seat of a car, has tormented many in a city all too familiar with wanton […]

By The Associated Press BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore has been awarded a $30 million federal grant that will support the city’s $889 million plan to revitalize three neighborhoods. News outlets report the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant is being awarded to cities as part of the agency’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative Department. A […]

By Stephen Janis and J.K. Schmid, Special to the AFRO Storm clouds descended on Baltimore, Tuesday around 2 p.m. A black haze reached down to obscure the topmost floors of the World Trade Center. Lightning flashed and thunder louder than the trucks lumbering down Pratt Street. But the rain hadn’t come yet. A political career that […]

By Sean Yoes, AFRO Baltimore Editor, syoes@afro.com When I first met Tawanda Jones and her family in December 2013, it had been 155 days since Tyrone West, her brother and their loved one had been killed while in police custody July 18, 2013. West was beaten with batons, punched, kicked, tasered and choked to death by up […]