Free College in Prince George's County/ Community News/ #Ceasefire/ Legislation
Free College in Prince George's County/ Community News/ #Ceasefire/ Legislation
On Nov. 4, I had the opportunity to attend the Capital Market’s Turnip Tour. It occurred three days after Maryland Emancipation Day (Nov. 1). I am working on an article about that event. Capital Market organizers decided to have the event at Ridgeley Rosenwald School Museum. The museum is located along Central Avenue. Perhaps you don’t know, but that area was once Concord Plantation, where enslaved Black people were held. It is also the area where newly freed Black people settled and started to carve out a life for themselves. Currently, I am working on confirming some historical facts. I am waiting for a historian to get back to me. That article will be published next week. I will post the article here first. Stay tuned.
Community Notes
Excerpt: Frankie Seabron says her activism is rooted in a fundamental belief that oppression should be fought wherever she sees it. She views Israel’s government as an oppressive, occupying force for its treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza strip and West Bank. Seabron also sees a shared struggle when looking at the histories and modern-day experiences of Black Americans and Palestinians.
“We understand what it feels to be oppressed. We understand what it feels like to be taken from your homeland,” Seabron tells DCist/WAMU, referencing the Nakba, or the mass displacement of Palestinians from what is now Israel during the 1948 war.
“This is an ancestral thing for us,” Seabron says.
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Linda Green (Prince George’s County activist) and Katie Huffing — DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN is a Certified nurse-midwife and the executive director of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments — traveled to Atlanta for the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting. They, and perhaps others, asked for the institution to make a statement advocating for a #ceasefire in Israel. According to Green, Huffing spoke against Cop City (#StopCopCity) in Atlanta. Baltimore is constructing a Cop City.
Legislation
Council Member Edward Burroughs Announces Free College Tuition Program
Excerpt: District 8 Council Member Edward Burroughs III has announced a new program that uses MGM Casino revenue to provide free tuition at Prince George’s County Community College.
The program is available to those living in the six-mile radius surrounding the casino in District 8 and some border areas of District 7. While the program was initially funded at $1 million, the Prince George’s County Council on Tuesday allocated another $1 million to serve more residents and keep the program going beyond the upcoming semester.
Under the agreement to build MGM, a portion of gaming and tax revenue is dedicated to the surrounding community through the MGM Local Impact Grant
Fund.
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Bill: CB-097-2023
Status: Enacted
Sponsors: Edward P. Burroughs, Krystal Oriadha, Calvin S. Hawkins, Wala Blegay, Ingrid S. Watson, Jolene Ivey, Thomas E. Dernoga, Wanika Fisher, Eric C. Olson, Mel Franklin
Title: AN ACT CONCERNING RETURNING CITIZENS FAIR CHANCE TO HOUSING for the purpose of alleviating housing discrimination suffered by returning citizens and those with criminal convictions is their quest for adequate and suitable housing by prohibiting landlords from making inquiries into a prospective tenant’s criminal history.
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Bill: CB-091-2023
Status: Enacted
Sponsors: Edward P. Burroughs, Krystal Oriadha, Calvin S. Hawkins, Jolene Ivey, Thomas E. Dernoga, Eric C. Olson, Wanika Fisher, Ingrid S. Watson, Wala Blegay
Title: AN ACT CONCERNING PROJECT LABOR AGREEMENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE for the purpose of revising thresholds for project labor agreements, making all County projects valued at over $35 million to have a mandatory project labor agreements approved by the Project Labor Agreement Coordinating Committee for submission to the County Executive for their approval and change the composition of the Coordinating Committee.
Community Meetings
Prince George's Lynching Memorial Project
You’re invited to our November General Meeting to hear all about our two important next steps and learn how you can participate: erect an historical marker in honor of Mr. Thomas Juricks and research the 1875 lynching of Mr. John Henry Scott. In addition to the usual reports and updates, we will hear from three of our members who participated in the Civil Rights Bus Tour last month sponsored by the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project and led by Common Power.
When: Saturday, 11-18-2023
Time: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Where (Virtual): https://uuma.zoom.us/j/99968456748
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Prince George’s County Food Equity Council
Join us for A Community Conversation About Food in Jails!
Time: November 20, 2023, at 06:00 p.m.
At Food in Jails Should Heal Not Harm, we believe everyone deserves access to nutritious and healing food, including those impacted by the carceral system. We're excited to invite you to a community conversation where we'll hear from those affected and gain power to fix the issue together.
Where (virtually): bit.ly/FIJNov20
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Life After Release Free Expungement Clinic Every 1st Saturday of the month
Life After Release will hold an expungement clinic Saturday, September 2nd, 2023 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. The clinic will take place at Creative Suitland located at 4719 Silver Hill Road Suitland, Maryland 20746.Life After Release Free Expungement Clinic Every 1st Saturday of the month.
Time: Tuesdays and Saturdays, 1 – 3 p.m. EST
Location: This event’s address is private.
War
Sudanese soldiers who fled Ardamata say army leadership abandoned them
Excerpt: Sudanese soldiers who fled a Rapid Support Forces (RSF) assault on Ardamata in West Darfur have told Middle East Eye they were abandoned by the military leadership, who left them without supplies and support.
Their withdrawal from an army base in the el-Geneina suburb on 4 November preceded a frenzy of killing, with witnesses and activists previously telling MEE that at least 1,300 people were massacred by the RSF paramilitary force and its allied Arab militias.
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'No tunnels, no hostages, no Hamas command centre': outrage over Israel's raid of Al-Shifa Hospital
Excerpt: Israel's raid on Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital has sparked outrage on social media, as troops entered the strip's largest medical complex which has suffered a devastating humanitarian crisis.
The backlash came after Israeli forces raided the facility at 2am on Wednesday, which Israel had claimed was being used by Hamas, where they claimed they had found "weapons and other military equipment".
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IDF Finds Body of Soldier Noa Marciano, Who Had Been Held Hostage by Hamas in Gaza
Excerpt: IDF finds body of soldier Noa Marciano, who had been held by Hamas.
Body of 65-year-old Israeli woman hostage found near Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital, IDF announces.
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The Torture and Hope of the Palestinian Diaspora in the US
Excerpt: To be Palestinian right now feels as if the whole world is observing your naked body, which has been bruised and mutilated for more than 75 years. Everything is out in the open. “How much can it handle?” the torturer asks. “What if we trap it? What if we poke it here? Or maybe from here? How much longer until something bursts? Could it survive without food or water? Surely something’s got to burst. Ah, this side over here seems to be getting aggravated — will this be the part of the body that bursts?” And then, when something does inevitably burst, there is one question that everyone seems to ask, which I’ve come to realize is nothing but rhetorical: “Why did it burst?”
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Australia and other western governments ‘paralysed’ in response to Gaza conflict, says UN expert
Excerpt: Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said in a speech in Canberra on Tuesday that “violence begets violence” and warned that Palestinian children were being left “without hope” for their future.
She also argued that under international law, Israel “cannot claim the right of self-defence against a threat that emanates from the territory it occupies – from a territory that is kept under belligerent occupation”. Israel disputes the characterisation Gaza is occupied, although the Australian government has said it recognises that “the occupation continues”.
Community News
Outside the Baltimore area, auto thefts are up most in Prince George’s County
Excerpt: Silence. This is what Sean Rose, 33, heard when he clicked his car’s electronic key in his apartment’s garage in Adelphi, Maryland, one morning in early August 2023. He was met with an empty parking spot where his car should have been.
He later found out through a security video camera that his 2020 Kia Rio had been stolen. Police were unable to relocate it
“It was a slow build from confusion to panic to anger, all sorts of emotions,” Rose said. “I worked hard for the money for that car and these kids came in and took it from me for what? ... It feels terrible.”
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Prince George’s Municipal Election Roundup
Excerpt: The beginning of November marked municipal elections across Maryland and now that votes are in, results show seasoned and new politicians – some barrier-breaking — will be helping to make decisions across Prince George’s County.
College Park residents voted on Sunday, Nov. 5, and four municipal elections were held in Prince George’s County on Tuesday, Nov. 7.
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Prince George’s County to join national effort to boost semiconductor chip manufacturing
Excerpt: The new law outlines a 10-year incentive program that encourages companies to engage in research, development and manufacturing of semiconductor computer chips in Prince George’s County. Semiconductor chips store and process information and are an essential component of many electronic devices. The county’s funding for this program comes from appropriations in the federal bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022.