The Intersection Mag LLC

11/03/2025

The Intersection Magazine:

Baltimore, Maryland —While at the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project’s 8th annual conference, two of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s commissioners showed attendees, in the form of a slide show, a list of recommendations for a statewide policy to help remedy and repair communities injured by lynchings and racial discrimination.

Dr. Nicholas Creary, who co-wrote House Bill (HB) 307 with Del. Peña-Melnyk that helped to establish the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission (MLTRC), and Civil Rights Attorney and author of “Black Was The Ink” Michelle Coles, Esq., told the attendees that there are around 130 recommendations. Creary said the actual report is still in its early stages and that the commission has some “tweaking to do.” However, he maintained that the commission is on schedule to have it ready for the Maryland General Assembly’s viewing on Dec. 1.

“This has been a long, hard-fought process that has benefited from the contributions of so many people all around the state of Maryland,” said Coles on Oct. 25. “We're close to the finish line now.”
Maryland Historical Trust

The Committee produced a body of work aimed at repairing the horrors of lynching in Maryland

10/21/2025

From The Washington Informer:

"As the Trump administration strips away social safety nets and attacks programs that once supported working families, young Black Americans are charting their own path, heading to cities that offer opportunity, affordability and community, creating what many now call modern "freedom zones.” From Washington to Houston, check out the top cities leading this new migration."

Young Black Americans are creating 'freedom zones' in cities like Washington, Atlanta and Houston, seeking opportunity and community.

10/21/2025

From The Baltimore Beat:

“Kiara, can I see your Thing-A-Ma-Jig real quick?” asks Dyon Davidson, the founder and instructor of Beadly Speaking Kidz, a four-week jewelry making summer camp for girls.

It’s not that she can’t find the word she’s looking for — Davidson is calling out the name of a legitimate contraption, one her students have been using to make geometric shapes with wire. During week two of the program, they mastered the basics, like how to work with jump rings, which connect pendants, clasps, hooks, and more to metal jewelry. Next week, Davidson will teach them how to hand-paint their creations.

But this afternoon, the girls are free to show off what they’ve learned so far. When I walk in, Kiara Hinostraza, 12, is putting final touches on a pair of beaded ear cuffs.

“The best part was making the dangly things, and the hardest part was making the shape of the ear cuffs. They’re supposed to be exactly the same,” she told me.

“Kiara, can I see your Thing-A-Ma-Jig real quick?” asks Dyon Davidson, the founder and instructor of Beadly Speaking Kidz, a four-week jewelry making summer camp for girls. It’s not that she can’t find the word she’s looking for — Davidson is calling out the name of a legitimate contrapt...

10/21/2025

From Word In Black:

When Congress couldn’t agree on a budget to fund the government before Oct 1, officials used some budget trickery to guarantee that the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, known as SNAP, would continue through the end of the month.

But if Congress doesn’t pass a budget by Nov. 1, millions of people who put food on the table through SNAP — a disproportionate number of whom are Black — may have a lean Thanksgiving.

“Many people in America are a single-missed paycheck away from needing support from their local food banks,” Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of Feeding America, said when the shutdown started on Oct. 1. “A prolonged shutdown will deepen the strain, and more families will seek help at a time when food banks are already stretched due to sustained high need.”

The government shutdown could ruin Thanksgiving for millions of Americans.

10/21/2025

From The Intersection's Newsletter:

On Oct. 18, as thousands of people assembled in nearby Washington, D.C., for the “No Kings” rally, the region’s Black politicians, media representatives, and community members gathered at Fairmount Heights High School to remember the Million-Man March.

The meeting occurred inside the school’s auditorium. Madame Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, former county executive, County Executive of Howard County Calvin Ball, the first African American to hold that position, Calvin Hawkins, Daryl Barnes, and current County Executive Aisha Braveboy — to name a few — all recited their memories of the 1995 Million-Man March, and how this Black meeting shaped the rest of their lives.

Some key points taken from the meeting:

The meeting, like the Million-Man March, affirmed Black Men’s contribution to local communities, politics, media, and families.

Black women (Angela Alsobrooks, Aisha Braveboy, and Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Tara H. Jackson) affirmed the need for Black men in Prince George’s County communities. They affirmed the positive role that Black men have played in their lives.

They affirmed the need for more Black solidarity amongst politicians and community members at large, especially during this time when the Trump regime is surgically dismantling communities across the country.

They affirmed the impact of the Million-Man March. Black men spoke about how that day of unity amongst Black men provided a foundation for dreaming of a better unity within Black communities.

Some believed the Million-March had a spiritual undertone to it. One speaker said it was a day of atonement. He said it was a day for Black people to forgive one another and an opportunity to forge better communal and political relationships.

The Million-Man March, along with the day of remembrance, was an act of resistance to white supremacist narratives of Black men.

The gathering also served as a time to understand the time in which Black people find themselves. Black people are under assault by the Trump administration. Local Black politicians encouraged residents to participate in forging a plan forward. Meeting organizers did encourage attendees to sign up for two coalitions that seek to lay out an agenda for Black communities, in general, and (specifically) for Black fathers and their sons. Residents of Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. are encouraged to sign up. #

The Million-Man March happened nearly 30 years ago. It was led by the Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan. Local leaders wanted to remember the day, and how it impacted their lives.

10/21/2025

From Politico:

Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, told a group of fellow Republicans in a text chain the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and said he has “a N**i streak,” according to a text chat viewed by POLITICO.

Ingrassia, who has a Senate confirmation hearing scheduled Thursday, made the remarks in a chain with a half-dozen Republican operatives and influencers, according to the chat.

“MLK Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd and his ‘holiday’ should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs,” Ingrassia wrote in January 2024, according to the chat.

“Jesus Christ,” one participant responded.

Paul Ingrassia’s bid to lead a whistleblower agency is set for a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday.

10/17/2025

From Propublica:

“If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote, “they promptly let the individual go.”

But that is far from the reality many citizens have experienced. Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched.

About two dozen Americans have said they were held for more than a day without being able to phone lawyers.

The government does not track how often immigration agents grab citizens. So ProPublica did. Our tally — almost certainly incomplete — includes people who were held for days without a lawyer. And nearly 20 children, two of whom have cancer.

10/17/2025

From Wired Magazine:

“People are scared. Who says their goal is to traumatize people?” says one IRS worker, referencing private speeches given by Russell Vought, the head of OMB and a key architect of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 who has been the public face of the job-cutting. ”If any normal human said ‘My goal is to traumatize families’ there should be police at that person's doorstep.”

“It’s pretty demoralizing,” a Food and Drug Administration employee tells WIRED. “It’s clear this admin will act illegally to try to make agencies or offices they don’t like suffer more.” (The Trump administration has used government resources, like websites, to place blame on Democrats for the shutdown in what critics claim is a violation of the Hatch Act, a law forbidding the use of public assets for political messaging.)

“Every day is an adventure: new EOs, new memos,” says one Department of Homeland Security worker. “It’s constantly being on watch on where to pivot and what to stop, start, and sustain.” (All of these employees have been granted anonymity so they can speak candidly about their experiences.)

“People are scared," asks one federal worker. “Is WIRED hiring?” jokes another.

10/15/2025

From Politico Magazine:

Decades of legal precedents have, in practice, directed states and federal courts to ensure that legislative district maps contain some districts where minority voters make up at least half the population. The rationale is to prevent “dilution” of minorities’ voting power and ensure that communities of Black, Latino or Asian voters can elect their preferred candidates.

But Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch appeared inclined to bar virtually any use of race in redistricting. They suggested that race-conscious district lines might be unconstitutional.

And Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose vote will likely be pivotal in the case, repeatedly suggested that race-based remedies under the Voting Rights Act should be permitted only “for a limited period of time.”

“They should have an end point,” Kavanaugh said during the oral arguments, which stretched for about two and a half hours.

Several of the court’s conservatives appeared hostile to the traditional understanding of the civil rights law.

10/15/2025

From MLK50, a news publication that covers Memphis, Tennessee.
*Note: The arrests in DC were somewhat similar.

resident Donald Trump promised that his mass deportation campaign would target the “worst of the worst” people and make Americans safer, but nearly half of the arrests recorded in the Memphis area since January have been of people who have not been convicted of any crime, according to data analyzed by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrested at least 400 people in the first seven months of the year, compared to 320 during the same period last year — a 25% increase, according to the data, which was provided by ICE in response to a FOIA lawsuit to Deportation Data Project. The vast majority of the people apprehended are men who hail from Mexico, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras or Nicaragua.

A procession of people praying for peace in Memphis makes its way around Gaisman Park while police control traffic on April 19. The group mostly consisted of Spanish-speaking churches from Memphis’…

10/13/2025

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day

10/13/2025

From The Intersection Magazine:

At Cheltenham Veterans Burial, in South County, Prince George’s County, are polished gravesites of military veterans. These gravesites are symmetrically organized, existing among a manicured lawn. A line of tall trees, decorated with fall leaves, serves as a backdrop to the burial site.

Beyond those trees, exist two locations with grave sites of Black boys formerly held at a facility that incarcerated Black boys around 1870. Unlike the veterans’ graves that exist among the manicured lawn, these Black boys rest in marked and unmarked graves overtaken by thorns, dried leaves, vines, and fallen trees.

The boys once attended a facility called The House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children. The institution was built approximately six years after Maryland declared slavery illegal. According to the historical documents, the building was established to house “colored” children who were punished for alleged crimes. While there the Black boys were taught a trade. Marc Schindler, former assistant secretary and chief of staff of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, said that it is possible that these children were leased out to local businesses, a system that was perhaps akin to slavery. https://www.theintersectionmag.com/blog-2-1/80ul2szwkc3eedxc9zknoadpel2sdg