By Sierra Lewter Editor’s note: This is the personal story of one young African American woman’s rape as a child. Her name is being withheld to protect her privacy. “Margaret” grew up on a farm in rural Georgia with her mother and grandmother. At the age of six, the 60-year-old white man next door raped…
By Dominiquie Waters (Baltimore) and Joshua Mitchell (D.C.) Myra Jackson refuses to eat lunch in D.C.’s H.D. Woodson High School cafeteria because, she said, she just can’t stomach hamburgers or grilled sandwiches topped with “fake cheese.” The people who prepare and serve food to students “are not doing their job. Most students just go to…
By Katia Jordan My Granny, Gloria F. Smith, was an extraordinary grandmother who took the duties of being a grandmother and exceeded them significantly. The bond that we shared was almost indescribable. We shared a powerful and loving relationship. So when I learned during my sophomore year in college that Granny had pancreatic cancer, it…
By Marquart Doty and Berri Wilmore “We have to provide a safe place, where someone can feel comfortable enough to have a long conversation about their issues, in order to hear their own answers…” -Dedra Layne, Director, Safe Streets Baltimore We are constantly told that violence among youth in our urban neighborhoods is an “epidemic.”…
