African American

The offerings at a small, quiet New Orleans auction three years ago were "fair to middling" for Derrick Beard until he saw a note in small print in the catalog about a four-poster cherry bed.The bed, made by African-American craftsman Henry Boyd, went without a bid during an unimpressive first round of the auction."

Thanks for Mike Klingaman 's article, which focused on Kevin Krigger and his aspirations to break the over 100-year absence of African American jockey winners at the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes ("With the weight of racing history," May 16). One quibble: The article gives the impression that African American jockeys emerged during Reconstruction, when as Mr. Klingaman writes "the sport was young, agrarian and accepting of former slaves and their kin who rode the animals they'd once cared for. " On the contrary, African Americans, both free and slave, basically dominated horse racing from the 17th century up to Reconstruction.

The video is arresting. A figure wearing a ski mask appears just outside the front door of a school on a sunny day. In an instant, he and a student are charging each other, fists raised. They meet, a punch is thrown, and the person in the ski mask falls to the ground. Students scream. A girl charges the person who threw the punch, and then punches him. Students scream some more as the shaky frame captures them running to and fro. Welcome to the website worldstarhiphop.com — and in this case, the campus of Long Reach High School in Columbia.

The day after riding in the Kentucky Derby, Kevin Krigger packed his family and gear and headed for Pimlico Race Course - by way of Cincinnati. A woman there had captured his heart. She was Liliane Casey, 88, whose father, Jimmy Winkfield, was the last black jockey to win the Derby, or any Triple Crown race, in 1902. "I had to meet her," said Krigger, 29, who chatted with Casey in the living room of her apartment for nearly 2 1/2 hours. "We had a great time. She educated me as to what her father had gone through in racing.

Members of the Arch Social Club, at North and Pennsylvania avenues, are about to have a party. And the reason they're partying is that the city's oldest African-American social club is about to celebrate its centenary. An anniversary church service in recognition of its 100th birthday gets under way at 11 a.m. Sunday at Fulton Baptist Church, at 1630 W. North Ave. At its conclusion, revelers can cross the street to the club, and beginning at 1:30 p.m. take in a dinner and a jazz show featuring the Arch Social Club Big Band under the direction of Phil Butts.

On a steep hillside up the street from an auto repair shop, a group of McDaniel College students are piecing together long-forgotten lives. The students pull back brambles, trim branches and press flour into tombstones carved a century or more ago. They are trying to uncover the details of the lives of some of the early African-American residents of this small Frederick County town. "They were forgotten, but we're bringing their names back," said junior Emoff Amofa, 21, who is taking professor Rick Smith's January session class on tracing family histories.

A couple years ago, African-American artist Loring Cornish was focusing his creativity on works that addressed the civil rights movement. When a Jewish couple, Ellen and Paul Saval, bought some other pieces of his, Cornish went to their home to hang the art. By the time he was finished, "something came over me," he said. "I don't what it was. But I realized then that I had to include the struggles of the Jewish people in my work about the African-American experience. I went home, flipped over the 8-by-8(-foot)

It is no secret that for decades, tobacco companies have filled disadvantaged communities with advertising and marketing attracting generations of young people of color to the products they peddle. A new report from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health finds that alcohol companies are taking a page from the tobacco industry's playbook. Specifically, we found African-American youths ages 12-20 are seeing more advertisements for alcohol in magazines and on TV, compared with all youths ages 12-20.

The other day, I told my friend Rachael that I was reading a new book. She thought she recognized the title, but to be sure, she asked me, ''Is the author African-American?''On the back of the book jacket is a black woman's photograph, so I said, ''Yes.'' But I really should have said I didn't know.Just because you're black, does that make you African-American?I don't think African-American describes me or almost any of the black people I know, who, like me, are without most of the rich trappings of African culture we should have in order to accurately call ourselves African-American.

This week, beginning Tuesday, Feb. 19, Seven Oaks Elementary School in Perry Hall will help students celebrate diversity through the school's annual “African American Read-In Chain.” Throughout the week, visitors to the school will share with students some of their favorite  literature written by African American authors.   Some of the school's scheduled readers are Sen. Katherine Klausmeier, Delsgates John Cluster and Eric Bromwell, County Councilman David Marks, and several Baltimore County Public Schools friends and educators, as well as former Seven Oaks Elementary administrators and teachers.

A Baltimore Fire Department division developed to increase recruitment among black city residents and combat racial tensions within the department's ranks is set to be eliminated in a planned round of budget cutbacks. The move has caused concerns among African-American leaders in the department. Lloyd Carter, the deputy chief for recruitment, who would be reassigned under Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's budget for the next fiscal year, said he believes his position and the small division built around it should be saved.

Despite decades of regulation, legislation and effort, obstacles continue to hinder equal employment opportunities for African-Americans in the federal workplace, a federal commission has reported. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said "unconscious biases" about African-Americans, a lack of adequate mentoring opportunities and insufficient training assignments all affect hiring or advancement in government jobs. The failure of agencies to follow and effectively enforce equal employment opportunity law also has an effect, the commission said in the report published this month.

The Census Bureau announced last week that it is dropping the use of the term "Negro" to describe black Americans in its population surveys. I suspect few will mourn the word's passing. Today Americans of African descent, especially younger ones, almost universally prefer to be called African-American, people of color or simply black. The bureau reports that the number of blacks who self-identify as Negroes has dwindled to fewer than 50,000, most of them older people living in the South.

Otis R. "Damon" Harris Jr., a Baltimore singer who performed with the Temptations during the 1970s and later used his own diagnosis of prostate cancer to help raise awareness of the disease in African-American men, died Feb. 18 from the disease at Joseph Richey Hospice. The Owings Mills resident was 62. "Singing was his thing. When we were kids, his ambition was to be a singer for the Temptations. We did talent shows where we played Temps records and he'd sing," said Chuck Woodson, a cousin and broadcaster who recently retired as general manager of WFBR-AM 1590.

James Guyton plays basketball. But skiing? Not so much; especially since it means being out in the cold. When the Chesapeake Ski & Sports Club Inc. invites African-American teenagers to try a day on the slopes, members expect such resistance. It took some gentle prodding from counselors at the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club of Metropolitan Baltimore before Guyton, 16, reluctantly agreed to try snowboarding - which seemed a little cooler. Wrapped up warmly in a red ski jacket and black pants borrowed from the local ski group, he stumbled his way down the bunny slope at the Whitetail Resort in Pennsylvania during the recent visit.

It is not unusual to see art that tackles social and political issues, but there's still something startling about Jeffrey Kent's solo show "Preach!" at the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park. The Baltimore artist zeros in on opposition by some African-Americans, especially in churches, to same-sex marriage. Kent employs provocative imagery, including minstrel figures in blackface, and an evocative substance: cotton. The impetus for the recently completed project goes back to 2008.

Shelonda Stokes has a vision for this year's African American Festival — and it's a whopper. In her second year producing the festival, she's already excited about one of its new features: a fitness-craving flashmob, with enough people to earn a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, bopping and gyrating to the tune of Beyonce singing "Move Your Body. " That part's all planned and ready to go. Now here's the dream part: One of those dancers leading the way is first lady Michelle Obama.

COLLEGE PARK - Darryl Hill didn't set out to make history. The Atlantic Coast Conference's first African-American football player said Tuesday that he was a "reluctant pioneer. " But as the former Maryland wide receiver's college career unfolded in the early 1960s, he and his family were victimized by racism. The more Hill was taunted by fans, the more he said he became invested in the cause. "When I started seeing … the horrors that were going on in the South, I got more and more motivated," said Hill, who was invited to campus Tuesday to mark the 50th anniversary of his arrival at the school in 1962.

Saint Agnes Hospital will work with local churches to screen for heart disease, using a $244,455 grant from The AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation. The hospital announced Thursday that it had received the award. The screening program will focus on African-American women, who have the highest risk for developing heart disease, the hospital said. Those found to have heart disease or risk for it will get access to educational programs, lifestyle coaches and exercise classes. The hospital will follow patients over time and measure improvements in health.