It was a beautiful, summer day in the middle of September. Alone in the cloudless, crystal blue sky, the sun reserved its 2 o’clock spot. Meanwhile, usual everyday activities assumed at State Correctional Center: Inmates stood anxiously at canteen windows with their orange net bags; bored inmates loitered the boulevard (walkways) to say “what’s up?” […]
Written by Killian Yeatts Edited by Latif Torres-Robinson Once upon a time in the final hours of July 24, 1900, in New Orleans, Louisiana, three officers accosted two Black males for no reason other than the color of their skin. In a wrongful attempt to arrest the two men, one of the officers held his […]
People’s perception of me meant more to me than how I percieved myself. Needless to say, I was oblivious as to who I was; it wasn’t important. For almost two decades, I lived up to family, friends, even strangers’ expectations rather than my own. Like a lovable character in a fiction novel or screenplay, my […]
When I was 13 yrs old, I wanted to be a rapper. Sometimes after school, my Aunt Sylvia’s home office turned into my music studio – I would design my own albums covers on the computer; I named unwritten songs; and I recorded only a few songs on my karaoke machine. Over the course of […]
With the spike of gun violence across our nation, “We The People” can help save a child from becoming the next victim of random gun violence. Despite previous events between law enforcement and inner-city communities, the police continue to remove illegal guns off of our streets. However, cooperation amongst “The People” will be far more […]
“Gracias señor!” a middle age woman said to a Cuban native. The American journalist, who was tall with long blonde hair, had stopped to buy a cold drink from a concession stand. While keeping herself hydrated, she resumed her search for a good story, taking pictures with her camera and making notes of the country’s […]
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! were my mother’s words as she shook my motionless body. I was asleep on my queen-sized bed. When I opened my eyes, a blurry image of my mother was hunched over me with a pleasant smile. As I sluggishly sat up, my mother quickly sat down beside me. “What’s […]
One morning in the summer of 2003, I lounged in the cozy family room of my parents’ house. While my mother, stepfather, and older brother were all at work, I inherited my parents’ Church Hill residence until after 4 pm. Smoking marijuana, listening to loud hip hop music, and watching BET videos on the big […]
Alone, in fear, I hid under the kitchen table in my mother’s Mosby Court project in Richmond, Virginia. It’s a memorable event that I’ll never forget. I was 2-years-old sitting shirtless on the cold tile floor in a diaper. I don’t remember how I got there, but I was under the table because I was […]