www.afro.comOctober 18, 2014 - October 18, 2014,
Volume 123 No. 11
A1 $1.00
The Afro-American
Nation’s #1 African American Newspaper 2014 Nielsen-Essence Consumer Report
OCTOBER 18, 2014 - OCTOBER 24, 2014
Brown Proposes Positive Gains Mayor Announces Study Task Force for the Black Community Baltimore’s Heroin Problem
By AFRO Staff
Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown (D) seems destined to become the first Black governor of Maryland—if recent polls are any indication. The AFRO did not get a chance to speak with him or his running mate Ken Ulman about his potentially historic election or how their platform will impact African Americans, as requests for interviews went unmet. However, a look at the Democrats’ campaign website anthonybrown.com and the candidates’ public Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown seems destined to become the remarks offer some insight first Black governor of Maryland—if recent polls are any into what a Brown-Ulman indication. administration will mean for Maryland’s African Americans. Jobs and economic empowerment continues to be a chief issue for African Americans across the nation and in Maryland. Brown has pointed to his support of legislation this year that will raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by July 2018 as something that will specifically affect African Americans. In terms of creating jobs, his plan involves infrastructure projects, such as the Red Line and Purple Line subway projects in Baltimore and in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, respectively. He also plans to expand vocational education opportunities to better prepare Marylanders for in-demand jobs. Continued on A3
By Roberto Alejandro Special to the AFRO Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie RawlingsBlake announced the creation of a task force to study the city’s ongoing heroin problems and to make recommendations by July of next year at a press conference at City Hall on Wednesday. Flanked by Dr. Jacqueline Duval-Harvey, interim commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department, and Bernard McBride, president and CEO of Behavioral Health System Baltimore (BHSB), Rawlings-Blake announced that the task force would be overseen by BHSB. “Specifically, I have asked that [the task force] provide recommendations for
Election 2014
Join the 359,271 Facebook fans who follow the AFRO, the Black newspaper with the largest digital reach in the country. INSERTS • Md. Dept. of Housing • Walmart
Listen to “First Edition”
afro.com
Your History • Your Community • Your News
Join Host Sean Yoes Monday-Friday 5-7 p.m. on 88.9 WEAA FM, the Voice of the Community.
Join the AFRO on Twitter and Facebook
strengthening drug treatment options, improving access to treatment, [and] reducing substance abuse overall in Baltimore City,” said Rawlings-Blake about the task force’s mandate. “The task force will also work to strike the right balance between proper access to treatment, as well as balancing the concern of many communities and businesses who worry about the overpopulation of clinics in some areas.” The mayor’s description of the task force suggested it would be focused on issues related to treatment and public safety. “As my administration works to implement more comprehensive reforms for heroin treatment, we’ll also continue our robust efforts at curbing access to heroin on our city streets and holding dealers accountable for bringing these drugs into our community,” said the mayor. Asked whether the task force would look more broadly at issues contributing to the proliferation of addiction and drug trafficking in Baltimore, such as the city’s desperate economic conditions or public education, the mayor responded that she felt she was clear in her comments that the task force’s would be a holistic approach, but then reiterated a list of issues related only public safety and treatment. “Are we going to start at Head Start and figure out what happens to a kid in pre-K that drives them into drug use? No,” said
Continued on A5
Fed. Courts Address Voter Disenfranchisement By Zenitha Prince Senior AFRO Correspondent
Hundreds of thousands of voters of color in Texas and Wisconsin will not be denied access to the ballot box this November in the wake of two recent court rulings. Civil rights advocates are claiming these rulings are significant victories. On Oct. 9, a federal judge in Texas and the Supreme Court struck down laws that would require voters in both states to present photo identification to vote. This issue has been a political flashpoint in states across the nation. Republicans have argued it’s a needed to prevent voter fraud. Democrats and civil rights activists say widespread voter fraud is a mere figment of the GOP imagination and that the laws are instead meant to keep minorities, the poor and the young – who tend to lean Democrat – from voting. Texas’ law, SB 14, has been deemed the most restrictive voter ID law in the nation. “The court’s ruling will enable minority voters to more fairly participate Continued on A3
Maryland’s Anti-Voucher Bias
Monumental City Bar Foundation Symposium
Examining Diversity in the Legal Profession
By Roberto Alejandro Special to the AFRO
By Roberto Alejandro Special to the AFRO A recent symposium at the University of Baltimore School of Law took on the issue of diversity in the legal profession, highlighting the need for improved recruitment and retention of minorities and women in Maryland’s, and the nation’s, top law firms. According to the American Bar Association, women account for only 17 percent of equity partners at American law firms, despite making up 34 percent of the legal profession. African Americans currently only make up 4.8 percent of the legal profession overall. Troublingly, the profession remains over 88 percent White. For Ron Richardson, chair of the Monumental City Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Monumental City Bar Association which distributes grants to community-based organizations serving underprivileged populations, the profession has “obviously come a long way, but we obviously have a long way to go. Most of the major firms do not have a lot of minority equity partners.” The symposium, held on Oct. 13 and titled “Symposium on Race and Gender: Embracing
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Former Rep. Harold Ford served as the keynote speaker for the symposium. Diversity in the Legal Profession,” was the result of what Richardson calls “collaborative competition” between his foundation and the Baltimore Bar Foundation. Continued on A5
Last week, Baltimore City announced the reopening of its Housing Choice Voucher Program (formerly known as Section 8) waiting list for the first time since 2003. Any interested resident may apply for one of 25,000 spots, online, between Oct. 22 and 30. In Baltimore, as well as many other jurisdictions, however, there are no legal requirements that landlords accept all legal sources of income (SOI), including the federally subsidized vouchers, for rental purposes, undermining the ‘choice’ portion of this federal housing program. Odette Ramos is the executive director of the Community – Odette Ramos Development Network of Maryland, which for the last year has been running the ‘Consider the Person’ campaign, designed to dispel myths surrounding the types of tenants voucher recipients are. “In Maryland, it’s perfectly legal for a landlord to say, ‘Oh, I don’t like how you’re getting your money, so I’m not going to Continued on A5
Copyright © 2014 by the Afro-American Company
“In Maryland, it’s perfectly legal for a landlord to say, ‘Oh, I don’t like how you’re getting your money, so I’m not going to rent to you.’ And that, to us, is discrimination.”