Prince Georges Afro-American Newspaper April 19 2014

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PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY EDITION

Volume 122 No. 37

APRIL 19, 2014 - APRIL 25, 2014

Voter Suppression:

Ohio’s Incredible Tactics By Zenitha Prince Senior AFRO Correspondent It was a sunny March morning when Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner (D) and her small band boarded the No. 4 bus, beginning their trek from the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati to a proposed new county Board of Elections in Mount Airy. The trip, she said, was meant to show how a decision to move early voting from downtown to the suburbs would make it extremely difficult for Hamilton County voters that didn’t have a vehicle. “It took two buses – the second bus was late; one and

State. Sen. Nina Turner staged a bus ride to the nearest polling place. Courtesy Facebook

a half hours one way, and that doesn’t even count the time voters will spend waiting to vote; a half-mile walk since the bus didn’t stop outside the site,” then they had to trod up a long driveway with no sidewalks since the building was situated some way off the street, Turner recalled.

“This is patently unfair,” said the lawmaker, who was joined by other Democratic colleagues and community activists. “How many hurdles should you have to jump to vote?” According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2012 American Community Survey, almost 13 percent of Hamilton County households –mostly in Cincinnati—do not own a vehicle, creating a potential barrier to early voting given the relatively difficult access to the new site. It is but one of several new laws and policies that rolls back access to the ballot box in Ohio, voting advocates say. “Unfortunately, in the state of Ohio, our GOP-led Legislature and governor’s Continued on A3

Voter registration deadline June 3 How They Stand INSIDE A3

By Megan Brockett Capital News Service

This is the first in a series of seven articles that examines Maryland gubernatorial candidates’ positions on major issues.

B3

ANNAPOLIS - When Gov. Martin O’Malley claimed a minimum wage increase as his top priority of the 2014 legislative session, his final as governor, he sparked a firestorm of debate between lawmakers in Annapolis and the handful of candidates

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Vet Wages War on VA By Zenitha Prince Special to the AFRO

For more than two decades, Chauncey Robinson has been waging war on behalf of himself and other veterans. The New Yorkbased prisons’ ministry coordinator said that for too many veterans returning home means facing another battle – just on a more familiar front – as they struggle to obtain the rights due them in exchange for their service to their country.

“Veterans are disenfranchised, disowned, neglected and abused; they’re treated like peasants by their own government,” the 53-year-old Desert Storm veteran said. “We love our country but does our country love us?” The answer seems to be a resounding, “No,” he said. “Veterans are basically not taken care of when they return home.” That is why Robinson has pursued a letter-writing campaign to congressional Continued on A5

Gubernatorial Candidates Split on Minimum Wage

Emancipation Day: Hip Hop Artists Hold ‘Great Debate’ A Haunted House 2 Review

Chauncey Robinson has been waging war on behalf of all veterans.

fighting to succeed him. O’Malley is now expected to sign into law a measure that would gradually raise the state’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by July 2018. The base rate of pay for most workers in Maryland currently stands at $7.25 an hour, on par with the federal rate. The seven major gubernatorial hopefuls were split down party lines on the issue, according to their responses to a Capital News Service candidates’ questionnaire submitted while the session was underway.

The diversity of their answers reflected the nature of the battle fought this session by Maryland legislators and the debate still happening around the nation, including at the federal level. Earlier this year, President Obama called on Congress to raise the minimum wage for all workers to $10.10

“I stand behind our administration’s proposal …”

By Roberto Alejandro Special to the AFRO African-American children in the United States fare worse than any other group on key factors affecting economic success later in life. According to a report released in April by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, this fact highlights the necessity of focusing on the way systems operate to exclude Black children from meaningful participation in the nation’s economy. The report, titled Race for Results, collects data from all 50 states on 12 factors affecting the likelihood someone will be middle class by middle age. It then presents an index score from zero to 1,000 that makes it possible to compare how well positioned to reach the middle class children from different groups are. The higher the score, the more likely children in the relevant group will be middle class by middle age. Asian and Pacific Islander children had the

— Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown

governor.maryland.gov

African Americans Behind on Key Factors Swaying Entry into Middle Class

best overall score in the nation, with 776. NonHispanic White children had a national score of 704, while African-American children had the lowest national score at 345. The score for African-American children in Maryland was slightly higher, at 474. Among the factors considered in the study were percentage of fourth graders who scored at or above proficient in reading, high school students graduating on time, children who live in twoparent families, and children who live in areas where less than 20 percent of residents live in poverty. All these are factors that have been found by the Social Genome Project of the Brookings Institution to impact the likelihood that children will reach the middle class by middle age, according to Laura Speer, associate director of policy reform and advocacy at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. For Speer, the low index scores for many

“African-American children in the United States fare worse than any other group on key factors affecting economic success later in life.”

Continued on A3

an hour by 2015. Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, a Democrat and O’Malley’s pick for governor, had backed the administration’s original measure, which would have raised the Maryland minimum wage to $10.10 an hour two years sooner than the measure ultimately passed by the legislature, and increased the base rate of pay for tipped workers. “I have worked with ... O’Malley,

Continued on A5

Groundbreaking Ceremony Held for DHCD Headquarters By Courtney Jacobs AFRO Staff Writer

New Carrollton received groundbreaking information during a news conference April 9. Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, with County Executive Rushern L. Baker III, state and local officials, and community leaders announced the start of construction on the new Maryland Department of Housing and Community (DCHD) headquarters at the New Carrollton metro station. “These are projects that are community supporting, community building efforts, jobs created and economy growing projects,” Lt. Brown said during the news conference. After a competitive bid process in May 2013, handled by the Maryland Department of General Service (DGS,) the lease for the new headquarters was approved by the Board of Public Works. Berman Enterprises LP is the chief developer and property manager; a multi-generational real estate and investment holding company that owns and manages over 6.5 million square feet of commercial office and retail space in Maryland, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, in addition to hundreds of acres of developable land in Washington D.C. Construction has started and is expected to be complete by Continued on A5

Copyright © 2014 by the Afro-American Company


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