Category: Baltimore News

Imagine gazing at verses of poetry written in the 18th century by African American poet Phillis Wheatley. Or browsing through an 1832 account of how runaway Harriet Jacobs hid in an attic –for seven years—from vicious slaveholders. Or looking at a letter from Malcolm X to biographer Alex Haley two years before the Black Muslim […]

A federal grand jury indicted nine Baltimore retail storeowners for a food stamp fraud scheme that netted at least $7 million over the last three years. According to officials, the storeowners would allegedly debit food stamp cards for cash instead of food and split the proceeds. The food stamp scheme has been going on since […]

A stream of women, along with a sprinkling of men, all adorned with afros of all shapes, sizes, textures and colors shuffled into Oyin Handmade, a natural hair product shop, on Sept. 16 for a celebration of natural hair. The crowd creating an audible buzz outside the Charles Village storefront was for a book signing […]

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 […]

In an effort to crack down on crime in Coppin Heights, a West Baltimore neighborhood where, according to police, there have been 24 shootings since 2010, a state circuit court grand jury Sept.11 indicted nine local residents on drug conspiracy charges. On Sept. 11, State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein and Police Commissioner Anthony Batts announced the […]

Local officials and state lawmakers are once again attempting to make higher wages for Marylanders a reality. Last month Baltimore City Council members voted on a resolution requesting state action on increasing the minimum wage and the subminimum wage, which is earned by workers that are paid, in part, by tips earned. “This would be […]

More shaky ground lies ahead for the Baltimore Grand Prix. Race On LLC, which financed the professional motorsport event, decided Sept. 12 that the scheduling conflicts with other events planned for Labor Day weekend blocked further participation in the event billed “Celebration of Acceleration.” They had been at the helm of organizing the race since […]

Hailing from generations of educators, Ketia Stokes, a special education teacher at Green Street Academy, a Baltimore City charter school, was named 2013 Teacher of the Year , an acknowledgement she said she never expected. Stokes, 33, spoke to the AFRO, talking about her passion: education. AFRO: How did you feel about being named 2013 […]

WASHINGTON – Maryland is the latest target of Texas Gov. Rick Perry in a new radio spot that criticizes his counterpart Gov. Martin O’Malley and the state’s high taxes. Perry criticizes Maryland for high taxes on businesses and families, comparing it to his state’s low taxes, “fair” legal system and limited government, in a commercial […]

Baltimore’s City Council gave the green light Sept. 9 to one of the final –and most expensive—elements of the development of the city’s Inner Harbor, approving planned groundbreaking in October of Harbor Point in an 11-to-3 vote. The council action, taken over the objections of longtime opponents of urban development in the now-unoccupied area, is […]

A typical trip to an auto repair shop turned into the chance of a lifetime for a Baltimore woman, who received an all-expenses-paid visit for her and her 17-year-old special needs son to the Baltimore Grand Prix earlier this month. Corri Burman, a 38-year-old single mother, was waiting in a west Baltimore auto repair shop […]