To me, this issue feels like a conversation about generations.
It begins with a story that we share from Reckon, an award-winning national news organization that covers the people powering change, the challenges shaping our time, and what it means for all of us. Black people have molded and shaped this land to make it suitable for a number of highly lucrative industries — all without reaping the financial benefits or even a bit of praise.
MacKenzie River Foy tells the story of people in Western Maryland who are working to uncover a forgotten cemetery that holds the memories and remains of Black people who once worked at the Catoctin Iron Furnace.
“It seems that Black histories still remain captive here at the feet of the Catoctin Mountains. I sit on a wooden bench carved with adinkra symbols and I, too, am an unquiet place. My body and mind wrestle to make meaning of this site of enslavement, reckoning as I always have with the burden and privilege of memory,” she writes.
Nicole King, along with members of the Eaddy, Gunn, and Walker families, memorialize many of the Black families who have called the Poppleton community home. They fought for decades to save the community from a deal that would have claimed their property to make room for a development project. The group says they are still waiting on true justice.
“In order to remove the Eaddy family home from the development footprint, the City paid $260,000, the “just compensation” the Eaddy family was owed from their eminent domain case against the City, to La Cité. Nothing was ever paid to the Eaddy family for all they suffered in their fight for their home and the decades of living in a neighborhood that was condemned,” they write.
A project spearheaded by Sharayna Ashanti Christmas matches younger generations of Black artists with more experienced creators. Together, they explored a wealth of Black archival history by way of the Afro Charities archives, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, and more.
“By exposing them to the archives they are able to build layers in understanding themselves through the development of new work which in turn connects them deeply to the community,” Christmas told us. “We hope to develop multiple cohorts who not only become great artists but also formidable radical cultural workers, advancing our people forward.”
Finally, I’m again plugging our Fall 2024 Youth Election Survey. We want to know what the next generation of residents and leaders think about how the city is run and what they want for the future.
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