Category: Portfolio.

Take a ‘Stay-cation’ at the First Zipline Course in Illinois

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By Briahnna Brown, McKenzie Marshall

Zipline

Summer has officially begun and now many families are trying to decide where they can take their family for a vacation while also staying on a budget.

Beach resorts can be very costly, but why travel so far? Go Ape Treetop course is what some would categorize as a “stay-cation,” located only 30 minutes outside of Chicago in Bemis Woods, you can take the family on an adventure in the woods for two to three hours.

Yes, this might not be the vacation you had in mind, however, this can be just as much of a rewarding experience for you and the family as if you had traveled to a destination resort. You are able to explore the forest canopy, fly on zip lines between each platform, swing through the trees, and observe the peace and quiet surroundings away from the city.

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Chicago Defender.

Black-Owned Tech Start-Up Aims to Fix #AirbnbWhileBlack

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Discrimination against Black Airbnb users has been brought to light recently with people taking to social media with the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack to tell personal stories where they were denied a room with Airbnb, the online platform where people can list and rent places to stay. As the stories generally go: a white host declined a black user’s request but accepts a (real or fake) white user’s request for the same dates.

Rohan Gilkes, 40, was one of those telling his story, as he wrote on Medium about how he was denied a place to stay on Airbnb. After posting his story, there was an outpour of other people telling similar stories which prompted him and co-founder Zakiyyah Myers, 40, to create an alternative platform. So, Noirebnb was born.

Gilkes, who was born in Barbados and lives in Tampa, Fla., is no stranger to tech start-ups as he has been helping to build million-dollar tech companies for the last five years. Since the soft launch of Noirebnb on Monday, he’s been getting a lot of attention and praise on social media.

“It just went crazy!” Gilkes said. “I don’t think I’ve slept.”

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Chicago Defender.

Conference Wants to Save Lives by Killing ‘Ugly Word’

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Volunteers pose for a photo in front of the event’s registration table. (Photos by Erika R. Whitehead)

WASHINGTON – For Shante Miller, stigma is “an ugly word” that came into her life and stole away her grandmother.

“My grandmother passed due to AIDS-related complications in 1996 when I was in ninth grade,” Miller, a consultant for HIV/AIDS in Philadelphia told a crowd that had gathered to talk about the impact of the shame associated with the disease, “and it was because of stigma.”

Her grandmother found out she was HIV positive and never told anyone, she said. One day, Miller and family members came home and found her grandmother was sick.

“She was so sick,” she said.  “”We didn’t know what was going on.   We took her to the doctor and came home without her.

“My grandmother would not go to the doctor, and she would not tell us what was going on with her.”

Miller is one of the millions whose lives have been affected by the shame, the stigma, associated with HIV and AIDS.

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HU News Service.

Finishing Fence of Slain Baltimore Father Becomes Cause

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Community members and leaders helped to build the fence that Kendall Fenwick wanted around his house to give his children a safe space to play but was gunned down before he could do so. (Photos by Brelaun Douglas, HU News Service)

BALTIMORE — Concerned residents, friends, political figures and police officers came together to finish what a slain father had started.

Kendal Fenwick, 24, was gunned down outside his home on Park Heights Avenue in west Baltimore.  He was in the process of building a fence around his backyard to keep drugs and drug dealers away from his family home.

A truck driver, Fenwick wanted to give his three children a a safe haven in the midst of a city plagued by violence. For his actions, police said, he became the 295th homicide victim in a city where murders have now climbed past 300.

On a bright, crisp Sunday morning, dozens gathered to pitch in and help complete that dream. Attorney Ivan Bates, a friend of Fenwick’s father, helped launch the event through social media and a hashtag #FinishTheFence.

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HU News Service.

The Mississippi Link.

 

Effort to Halt Prison Revolving Door Loses Funding

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Graduates of the Public Safety Compact throw up their caps in celebration of their graduation. (Photos by Briahnna Brown)

BALTIMORE – Antoin Quarles stood at the podium erect and proud.  He was dressed in his burgundy cap and gown, adorned like his 68 fellow graduates gathered in a room at the University of Baltimore for their special day.

Quarles had been asked to speak audience because of his previous life and how he had come through it was exemplary of so many of the former students.

“I grew up in a neighborhood where all I seen was hustlers, stick-up boys, shooters,” Quarles, 43, would say later.  “I didn’t have a father to guide me.  I was outside. The streets became the vision that I was into. Going inside prison was always about image, identity and having my nickname connected to my hood.”

He took deep a breath and began. He told them how he had been in and out of prison for selling drugs for 20 years, almost all of his adult life. He was homeless at times, roaming the streets armed with guns and knives and looking for a crime to commit, and then he was back behind bars.

Consequently, he struggled to maintain a relationship with his daughter and the rest of his family.

Those days are over, he said.

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HU News Service.

Black Voice News.

 

Region Dodges Hurricane’s Worst; Stays Ready

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WASHINGTON — While some parts of Maryland, Washington and Virginia continue under a state of emergency, the region appears to have missed major damage from Hurricane Joaquin, which hammered the Bahamas and is causing significant damage in the Carolinas, weather officials said.

On Sunday morning, the category 4 hurricane was veering to the northeast after lashing the island nation of the Bahamas, a popular winter tourist destination, and causing flooding in the mid-Atlantic area of the U.S.

Joaquin has already caused flooding in North and South Carolina and resulted in a number of deaths, including possibly 33 people aboard an American cargo reported missing near the Bahamas.

The Washington-Baltimore area, however, has been spared significant damage.

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HU News Service.

Dems Say Republican Spending Restrictions Unfairly Hurt People of Color

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House Democrats came to Howard University to dramatize the impact, they say, that Republican-led spending cuts have on black and Hispanic college student and their families. (Photo by Briahnna Brown, HU News Service)

WASHINGTON — House Democrats came to Howard University to dramatize how, they say, Republican-initiated federal funding policies are disproportionately hurting black and Hispanic college students, black and Hispanic families and the educational opportunities for all public school students.

The policy, called sequestration, was enacted in 2011 by the Republican controlled House of Representatives as a plan to force Congressional to reduce the country’s federal budget deficit.

Under the plan, when Congress cannot agree on the budget, as the nation saw in 2013’s fiscal year, mandatory, across-the-board spending cuts are made under sequestration that Democrats say have unfairly and unwisely cut certain programs.

“There are no Democrats who support sequestration,” Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland’s 5th District said. “Sequestration is a complicated word that starts with ‘S’ which stands for stupid. It is an irrational policy.”

The act lowers defense and non-defense spending by about $900 billion over 10 years.  Sequester-level funding was avoided during the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years, but it is expected to return this year unless Congress takes action.

“In short, [sequestration is] a disinvestment in America,” Hoyer said.

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HU News Service.

The Afro American.

PG County Dems Pleased at Substance, Tone of Presidential Debate

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The Prince George’s County Young Democrats gather to watch the first Democratic presidential debate. (Photos courtesy Maurice Simpson)

LARGO, Md. — After watching the first Democratic presidential debate, the consensus among members of the Prince George’s County Young Democrats and the Maryland Democratic Party Tuesday night was that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders dominated the night’s discussion, and even though former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley was able to make a few good points, he and former Sens. Jim Webb and Lincoln Chaffee were significantly overshadowed.

The tables were crowded at the watch party for the debate at a Famous Dave’s BBQ restaurant in Largo, Md. Many people proudly wore “I’m with Donna” stickers on their shirts to show support for Prince George’s County Congresswoman Donna Edward’s run for Senate. The room was abuzz with anticipation.

Prince George’s County is one of two of the nation’s richest African-American counties.

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HU News Service.

The Afro American.

 

HBCUs, Others Play “Guaranteed Games” in the NCAA

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Many HBCU football teams faced lopsided losses in the first two weeks under the “guaranteed games” system that pays smaller schools to play major athletic programs. Courtesy photo.

WASHINGTON – Like many teams at historically black colleges and universities across the nation, Howard University’s football team lost its first two games of the season by embarrassingly large margins; for Howard, a combined score of 118 to 0.

The second trouncing, a 76-0 loss to Boston College, made national news when referees shortened the game to avoid injuries and further embarrassment.

Meanwhile, Morgan State, a perennial MEAC powerhouse, lost 63 to 7 in its first game and 67 to 14 a week later.  Other HBCU teams posted similar results.  In all, they lost by combined scores of 492 to 92 in the first week.

These HBCUs, as well as predominately white small college teams take those beatings annually because they need the money.  The teams are paid millions and millions of dollars to play games they are expected to lose against big name football programs like Air Force, Georgia, Boston College, Michigan, Alabama and others.

The football teams are being paid to play in “guaranteed games,” as experts called them. In these football and basketball games, schools with much larger athletic programs pay schools with small athletic programs large sums to play early-season games at the larger-budgeted school’s stadium for what they consider an easy win.

Just recently, Southern University collected a $650,000 check to play the University of Georgia in Athens.  It lost 48 to 6.

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HU News Service.

L.A. Sentinel.

District Chronicles.

 

Local Business, Others Wary of Federal Shutdown

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Woodlawn, Md. restaurants, like City View Bar & Grill (pictured here), depend on local federal workers for a large part of their business.

WASHINGTON—Flory Top, the manager at City View Bar & Grill in Woodlawn, Md., is concerned that he, the cooks, the waiters and other workers at the popular restaurant will soon be facing a repeat of 2013 when business at the eatery dried up dramatically following the first government shutdown in 17 years.

With Congress facing a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government and Republicans threatening again to shut it down, Top, federal employees, private businesses agencies that depend on the federal government are concerned.

“Of course we’re worried,” Top said. “The Social Security [Administration] is right here, and that’s where many of our customers come from.”

The prospect of another shutdown within two years is growing stronger.

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HU News Service.