September 12, 2015 - September 12, 2015, The Afro-American A1 www.afro.com $1.00 $1.00
Volume Volume 124 123 No. No. 6 20–22
SEPTEMBER 12, 2015 - SEPTEMBER 18, 2015
Inside
Baltimore
Greatest of All Time?
Review: The Rise and Fall of the Black Panther Party
• Balto.’s Mayor’s
Race Get Crowded
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B1
Washington Bust of Margaret Sanger Stirs Race Controversy
• HU Students
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Protest School Administration, Financial Aid Office
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Baltimore City approves $6.4M settlement in Freddie Gray case By Roberto Alejandro Special to the AFRO ralejandro@afro.com
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President Jack Young, and the other members of the city’s Board of Estimates voted to approve the settlement on Sept. 9, with $2.8 million to be paid out to the Gray family in fiscal 2016, and $3.6 million in fiscal 2017. In his presentation of the settlement to the Board of Estimates, Deputy City Solicitor David Ralph noted that past judgments
Allegra Bennett, Baltimore Area Reporter and Self-Help Author, Dies at 68 By AFRO Staff
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Serena Williams salutes the crowd after defeating her sister, Venus, in the semi-finals of the U.S. Open in New York. See story on C6.
City leaders on Sept. 9 approved a $6.4 million settlement of all civil claims arising from the police involved killing of Freddie Gray last April. Citing the prospect of uncapped liability in federal court, and the desire to spare the city protracted litigation, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake, City Council
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Allegra Bennett, a Baltimore, Md. and Washington, D.C. mainstay, died at the age of 68 on Sept. 8. The cause of death was unavailable at press time. Bennett was a longtime reporter for The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Times, first covering crime and later becoming a columnist. She then started her own do-it-yourself magazine called Renovating Woman. In addition, she wrote speeches for politicians and became an advocate for self-publishing as well as authoring several non-fiction self-help books. Recently she starred in
Allegra Bennett was a selfhelp guru. energy saving commercial for BGE. Details of her memorial were unavailable at press time. When more information is available it will be posted on afro.com.
stemming from cases filed in federal court exposed the city to $39 million in liability in 1997, and $7.4 million in 2005. City Solicitor George Nilson, who also sits on the Board of Estimates,
Continued on A4
Barry Williams, Judge in Freddie Gray Case, Known for Evenhandedness By Zenitha Prince Senior AFRO Correspondent zprince@afro.com The Freddie Gray saga moved from the streets to the courtroom last week, turning a world-sized spotlight on Associate Judge Barry Williams, the Baltimore City Circuit Court jurist who is overseeing the criminal cases of the police officers charged in Gray’s death. But the 53-year-old is unlikely to wilt under the public scrutiny, observers say. “That’s not a problem for him. He won’t be worried about public pressure and all of that. He’s just going to do his job,” said Ronald Richardson, a civil attorney with the Law Offices of Peter Angelos who knows Williams from the courtroom and their shared membership in at least one professional organization. In fact, several professionals in Maryland’s legal community said Judge Williams may have been just the person needed to oversee a case of such complexity and gravity. “No question he’s a good fit,” said veteran criminal attorney A. Dwight Pettit. “He has a fundamental academic understanding of not only the procedural issues but also the substantive issues in this case.” Williams was born April 4, 1962, in Neptune, N.J. In 1984, he graduated from the University of Virginia with
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Continued on A4
The Black Lives Matter Movement Comes of Age By Barrington M. Salmon Special to the AFRO For many of the young activists in the Black Lives Matter movement, the shooting death of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of vigilante George Zimmerman by a Sanford, Florida jury of Whites marked a tragic coming of age. Until that moment, most Black millennials in the U.S. operated under the illusion that they were somehow beyond the times when they were still susceptible to being harmed by the police or racism. However, the millennials view of the way things were Continued on A3
D.C. Preps For Pope Francis Visit
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Washington D.C. residents are preparing for the Pope’s first official visit to America. See story on A3