African American

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.

Retired Lt. Cmdr. Wesley A. Brown, who broke the color barrier at the Naval Academy and was its first African-American graduate in 1949, died Tuesday of cancer at Springhouse of Silver Spring Assisted Living. He was 85. "It's important for America to remember Wesley A. Brown. He was a pioneer like Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson," said Navy historian Robert J. Schneller Jr., who wrote about Commander Brown's years at the Naval Academy in his book "Breaking the Color Barrier: The U.S. Naval Academy's First Black Midshipmen and the Struggle for Racial Equality.

Decades ago, a trip to segregated Ocean City presented far too many challenges for African-American families. Instead they went to a sandy peninsula near Annapolis, known as "the beach," for a day's outing. Carr's Beach - its proper name - offered swimming, picnics and entertainment. Many recall performances by up-and-coming stars such as Louis Armstrong, James Brown and Ray Charles, who, while touring on the Chitlin' Circuit, stopped at Carr's, one of the few local venues open to black entertainers of that time.

The Anne Arundel County Police Department has opened an internal investigation into a police training academy instructor's decision to send an email to dozens of his police colleagues calling for President Barack Obama to be voted out of office and challenging government welfare, immigration and other political topics. In the email, Cpl. Charles "Butch" Benner wrote that a "Nation of Sheep Breeds a Government of Wolves!!!" He also called for the closing of the country's borders, the establishment of English as the nation's only language and the institution of mandatory drug screening for everyone receiving government welfare assistance.

Baltimore Fire Chief James S. Clack, who has been grappling with allegations of racism in his department, announced Tuesday that he is promoting two African-American officers to be his top deputies. Clack, who is white, said he promoted the two assistant chiefs because of their qualifications, not because of race. But he stressed that the department has bolstered diversity initiatives under his leadership and he denied claims by a black firefighter's group that the department is plagued by institutional racism.

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.

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)

If you long to read copies of old, hard-to-find Jet magazines, or to admire a stamp collection featuring black Americans, visit today's open house at the Howard County Center of African-American Culture in Town Center.The open house, marking the museum's official reopening, takes place from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the 1,900-square-foot museum at One Commerce Center.Regular museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.In October, the museum moved from 10 Corporate Center, near the American Cafe, to nearby One Commerce Center, because it didn't have enough money to stay in the previous location, said Wylene Burch, the museum's founder and director.

The C5 Gallery at Cecil Community College's North East campus is celebrating Black History Month with an exhibition of contemporary African-American art from the Paul R. Jones Collection. Image and Response II, Words about Art will continue through Feb. 23. One of the oldest, largest and most complete holdings of African-American art in the world, the Paul R. Jones Collection is housed at the University of Delaware under the direction of curator Amalia Amaki. A reception will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Feb. 7, with an artists' talk at 6:45 p.m. Refreshments and hors d'oeuvres will be served.

`TC ANNAPOLIS -- When Elijah Cummings was young, he looked up the word "Negro," saw that it meant black and felt ashamed.But today, he's called an "African-American," and the Baltimore delegate said that gives him a feeling of pride and connection to his heritage.After he spoke yesterday, he and his colleagues on the House Constitutional and Administrative Law Committee unanimously approved a bill that calls on the state to refer to blacks as African-Americans in laws and regulations. State procurement laws, for example, refer specifically to blacks.

It never ceases to amaze me what I witness written in The Sun every morning when it's delivered to my front door. But the latest editorial ("Henson grabs the spotlight," May 2) shows the continued subtle racist views of a paper famous for its slanted and self-aggrandizing opinions since the days when Charles H. Grasty owned the newspaper in the early 1900s. The facts as you present them are only half-true, as Julius Henson and Rhonda Russell may have suggested a "counterintuitive strategy" on how to turn out the Republican base, and even to persuade African-American voters not to come out. Yet, it was, in fact, the campaign's call to have the authority line displaced from the robocall.

Rosie L. Stanfield, a registered nurse who later became the first African-American director of nursing at Spring Grove Hospital Center, died Saturday of ovarian cancer at Gilchrist Hospice in Towson. The longtime Randallstown resident was 66. The daughter of a long-distance truck driver and a homemaker, Rosie Louise Walker — who went by the name Rose — was born one of 10 children in Olney. The family later moved to Catonsville, where she attended Baltimore County public schools.

One of Elizabeth Catlett's linotypes could horrify viewers by depicting the aftermath of a lynching, the rope around the victim's neck held taut by the murderers' boots. And in the next room, a statue by Catlett of a mother and child would flood viewers with the memories of a maternal embrace. Catlett's sculptures and prints became symbols of the civil rights movement while championing the dignity and humanity of ordinary people. At the time of her death Monday at age 96 in her home in Cuernavaca, Mexico, she was widely considered one of the most important African-American artists of the 20th century.

Live near a foreclosed home in lousy shape? Join the club. National Fair Housing Alliance representatives visited 121 bank-owned homes in the Baltimore metro area and gave less than a third a good grade based on factors such as whether there was trash strewn about, overgrown grass, property damage and unsecured doors. The effort was part of a report on the condition of bank-owned homes in nine regions . The alliance and its partners said they found more problem foreclosures in neighborhoods whose residents are largely African-American or Latino than in predominantly white neighborhoods -- dramatically so, in some cases.

MIAMI - Wearing a sand-colored sportcoat he'd been handed as one of the night's guest of honors, Bryant McKinnie was sharing University of Miami memories with a small group of people when the college, and now NFL teammate, he'd just mentioned strolled into the room. McKinnie spotted him and chuckled. “Hey, Bryant McKinnie how does it feel to be back in Miami?” Ed Reed bellowed jovially at his former Hurricanes and current Baltimore Ravens teammate. McKinnie and Reed, who helped lead Miami to the program's fifth and last national championship in 2001, headlined the Class of 2012's induction into the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame on Thursday night.

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.

Storyteller and author Alice McGill appears at the Aberdeen Branch Library on Wednesday to wrap up the library's Black History Month celebration. Performing "Songs and Tales of African-American Folklore," McGill will draw from a collection of more than 200 stories, chants and songs, weaving their words and themes together to show the similarities in folk tales across ethnic and racial boundaries. McGill frequently explores ethnic and racial themes in her literary works. Her first book, Molly Bannaky, recounts the true story of a white servant girl living in Maryland in the late 17th century who falls in love with and marries a black indentured man. Miles' Song, McGill's second book, is set in the pre-Civil War South and tells the experiences of a 12-year-old slave boy as he learns about life and struggles to find a "song of freedom."

Things African filled the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center yesterday -- jewelry, books, artwork, Christmas decorations, dolls in traditional costumes.Heritage Bazaar drew 35 black entrepreneurs who offered shoppers a multitude of African-American crafts.And, fittingly, the bazaar raised money to help pay for restoration of the Ellicott City Colored School, built in 1880 as the county's first school for black children paid for with public money.The school, at Main Street and Rogers Avenue, entered the Howard County Register of Historical Sites in 1989.

What, exactly, made 17-year-old Trayvon Martin "suspicious" in the eyes of the man who shot him to death? The question makes me think back to the time before my mom passed away, when she was hospitalized in a highly respected hospital here in Baltimore. On one Sunday, after church, I went to visit her. Security at this hospital was in full action that day. Each visitor, apparently, had to sign in to declare what person and room they intended to visit. I was dressed in a black suit, white shirt, black tie, black socks and black dress shoes.

The Very Rev. Matthew J. O'Rourke, a Josephite priest and former superior general of his Roman Catholic religious order, died of congestive heart failure March 9 at St. Joseph Manor in North Baltimore. He was 93. Born in the Bronx, N.Y., he earned a bachelor's degree at Manhattan College and a master's degree from Loyola University in New Orleans. He was ordained a priest in 1947. In 1951, he helped found New Orleans' St. Augustine High School, a predominantly African-American institution.