December 28, 2013 - December 28, 2013, www.afro.com
Volume 122 No. 22
The Afro-American A1 $1.00
JANUARY 4, 2014 - JANUARY 10, 2014
Unemployment Benefits Ended Dec. 28 for Thousands of Marylanders Congress did not renew the extended unemployment benefits created to buffer the impact of the Great Recession.
By Blair Adams AFRO Staff Writer
For more than 25,000 Maryland residents, this holiday season was filled with the uncertainty of what’s to come after their extended Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) benefits ended. They are – Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake among more than a million Americans who lost “Unfortunately when their federal unemployment extended unemployment benefits Dec. 28 because insurance expires, many Baltimore job seekers will fall further behind in their recovery from the nation’s economic downturn,” Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. Emergency unemployment Former Oriole benefits pick up where state Center Fielder unemployment funds stop.
“Unfortunately when extended unemployment insurance expires, many Baltimore job seekers will fall further behind in their recovery from the nation’s economic downturn.”
INSIDE B5
Paul Blair, dead at 69
B3
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Missing for 63 Years
Baltimore Born Black Korean War POW Buried in L.A.
Remains of Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Gantt taken to burial site By Zachary Lester and Avis Thomas-Lester AFRO Staff Writers For 60 years, Clara Gantt hoped that her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Joseph E. Gantt, might be alive, despite the fact Clara Gantt and family friend that military officials Trena Thompson at funeral. had notified her in 1951 that he was missing and presumed dead. Gantt, who was born and raised in Baltimore, was working as a medic with the U.S. Army’s Battery C, 503rd Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division when he was taken prisoner on Dec. 1, 1950 during the historic bloody Battle of Kunu-ri, Korea. Clara Gantt, now 94, who was married to her husband for only two years when he became a prisoner of war, was notified in 1953 that he had died of pneumonia in a POW camp on March 27, 1951. But his body was not returned to her. “She was living in military housing in Fort Lewis, Wash., when she got a telegram telling her he was dead,” said Sharon Barnes, the Gantts’ niece. “She was told that she had to move out of base housing. She moved to Los Angeles and she’s been waiting for him ever since.” Clara Gantt’s waiting ended Dec. 21 when her husband’s
Clara Gantt leaves the funeral service. Courtesy photos
remains were returned to the United States. She was reunited with him in an emotional ceremony at Los Angeles International Airport, where she wept over his flag-draped casket. His remains had been found by a Korean citizen earlier this year and after extensive DNA testing in Honolulu, they were identified by authorities. Gantt was buried before hundreds of loved ones and military officials with full honors Dec. 28 in Inglewood, Calif., where Continued on A5
Fire Rips Through Northwood-Appold United Methodist Church By Alexis Taylor AFRO Staff Writer
Members of the Northeast Baltimore community were awakened by the sound of sirens in the early morning hours of Dec. 27 as the Baltimore City Fire Department responded to a four-alarm blaze on the corner of Loch Raven Boulevard and Cold Spring Lane. Emergency crews confronted flames pouring out of the Northwood-Appold United Methodist Church, where Dr. Cecil Conteen Gray is pastor. “At 3:22 a.m. we received a private alarm fire signal from the address. Units went to the scene to investigate and discovered that there was an active fire inside the building so they immediately called for a full first alarm,” Baltimore City Fire Department spokesman Ian Brennan said Dec. 27. “The fire spread rapidly through the building and it quickly went from a second to a third alarm and eventually became a fouralarm fire. It wasn’t brought under control until about five minutes after 11 a.m.” Brennan said that more than 100 firefighters were needed to knock down the fire, an effort which lasted well through a shift change at 7 a.m. “Once they noticed the roof and the steeple were fully involved they pulled members of the fire department out,” Brennan told the AFRO, adding that no firefighters or civilians were hurt in the incident. Fire crews were able to contain the flames but the blaze caused significant damage to the church itself, located in the 4400 block of Loch Raven Blvd.,
Reliability and Safety Among Bus Concerns for City Youth By Amirah Al Idrus Capital News Service
Students at Wide Angle Youth Media, which runs after-school programs, could have chosen any issue as the subject of their project a couple of years back. But the teenagers decided they wanted to spend the year working on a media campaign to improve school attendance by improving bus service. The bus figures large in the lives of Baltimore youth. It’s how they get to school. It’s how they travel to see each other. It’s how they get to movie theaters, the mall and after-school jobs.
“Without the bus, you don’t have a ride and you get stuck,” said Dominic Solomon, 15, a tenth-grader who takes two buses to school. Baltimore’s school system spends about $5.7 million on bus passes for high school students each year. These passes, called S-Passes, are only valid on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. But the students at Wide Angle, a nonprofit organization that teaches media education in after-school programs, believe the bus pass system, meant to make it easier for students to get to school, actually makes it harder to get there when Continued on A5
Fire crews rushed to the scene of the fire that engulfed the Northwood-Appold United Methodist Church, a staple in the community for decades.
Photo by Alexis Taylor
along with the church offices and supplemental classrooms also inside the building Baltimore police were on hand, along with federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents to begin an official investigation, as the blaze occurred within a building used for religious purposes. On Dec. 30, fire crews could still be seen investigating the damage along Continued on A3
It Is Not too Late to Get ‘Obamacare’
There was a great deal of attention paid to getting people enrolled into insurance plans offered by the Maryland Health Connection by the Dec. 27 deadline for Jan. 1 coverage. Enrollment by this date ensured coverage on the very first day that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect. But the opportunity to get insurance coverage is not over. Persons can still get coverage by signing up during the open enrollment period which is from now until March 31. So the important next phase is educating those who have not signed up for coverage that they can in fact
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still sign up. Their coverage will then begin as early as 30 days after enrollment. Those who did enroll in coverage that began on Jan. 1, must submit their first payment directly to their insurance carrier, and the carrier must receive the payment, no later than Jan. 15. Consumers should receive a communication from their insurance carrier within one to two weeks after enrollment, and should follow the instructions for paying their first invoice. Insurance carriers encourage electronic payments when possible. Continued on A3