For The Nation, with Connor Guy In March of last year, Javier Sicilia, one of Mexico’s leading poets, suffered a fate that is far too common in his country today: his 24-year-old son was murdered by a drug cartel. With over 40,000 dead since 2006 from cartel-related violence, and more than 9,000 unsolved disappearances, Sicilia’s plight is in many ways emblematic of his country’s. Shortly after his son’s death, he wrote and circulated an open letter addressed “To Mexico’s Politicians and Criminals,” in which he…Continue Reading “Interview With Javier Sicilia; The Movement for Peace and Justice in Mexico”
For The Nation, with Connor Guy, published March 22, 2012: More than 1,000 demonstrators gathered in Union Square Wednesday night to show solidarity with the bereaved family of Trayvon Martin and to call for the arrest and prosecution of George Zimmerman, the self-styled neighborhood watchman who shot and killed him almost a month ago. The US Justice Department is one of several agencies now looking into the incident. Zimmerman, armed with an 9mm pistol, was on patrol in his SUV in a gated housing community…Continue Reading “No Justice for Trayvon Martin, No Peace”
For The Nation, originally published January 24, 2012:
When Bob Moses brought his Algebra Project to Baltimore in 1990, he could hardly have imagined the impact his mathematics curriculum would have on the city’s youth two decades later.
Convinced that inner-city kids should be prepared for honors-level high school math, Moses – a leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee – founded the Algebra Project, which uses mathematics as an organizing tool to ensure quality public school education.
In Baltimore, the group’s students established a safe source of income to maintain the program and to keep them off the streets during high school by creating a tutoring program in 2001, raising funds to pay older students to teach younger ones.
When their state funding was threatened, the students formed an Advocacy Committee, researched the issues behind the cuts, and, unconvinced of the necessity of the budget axe, met with community and faith leaders to successfully stop the cuts. Today, the Baltimore Algebra Project operates on a $500,000 budget from public and private sources, and is entirely run by young people under the age of 23.
For the Indypendent Reader, published December 22, 2011: Carolyn Hutton, 64, tells me to have a seat as she plays a video tape of an ABC2 newscast about her from 2007. The clip shows Ms. Hutton in her home in the 800 block of N Washington St. in East Baltimore, interspersed with shots of construction work going on outside. The structural damage to her home by those machines tearing up the sidewalk on N. Washington in 2007 is the latest in a string of problems…Continue Reading “Multi-million Dollar Developers not Compensating East Baltimore Residents for Damage to Homes”
For the Indypendent Reader with Michael Kaplan
Bulldozers stationed in lots slated for redevelopment in West Baltimore’s Poppelton neighborhood represent the first step forward in a long-delayed and underfunded plan to revive the historic area. A sign, surrounded by overgrown bushes and weeds, proudly displays a map of the neighborhood promised by a redevelopment zone. Now five years behind schedule, the underfunded and overly-ambitious urban renewal plan has left residents uncertain of their neighborhood’s fate. Like the sign, Poppeleton also suffers from neglect.
Continue Reading "Poppleton: A Neighborhood in Waiting"
For the Inypendent Reader
The proposed commercial development at 25th St. and Howard Ave in Remington is in its final stages of City approval, and the chances of a living wage for future employees there, along with any assistance to small businesses in the area that may effected by the development, seem bleak. The $65 million dollar development will be anchored by a Walmart and Lowes, part of the retailers giants’ national push into urban areas.
Continue Reading "25th St. Station likely to go ahead without stipulations for living wage, small business protection" The proposed commercial development at 25th St. and Howard Ave in Remington is in its final stages of City approval, and the chances of a living wage for future employees there, along with any assistance to small businesses in the area that may effected by the development, seem bleak. The $65 million dollar development will be anchored by a Walmart and Lowes, part of the retailers giants’ national push into urban areas.