Empowerment

On May 28, 2008, ANTHONY "TONY" JONES, survived by mother, LaTonia Jones, father, Travis R. Owens, brother, Daniel J. Gilbert Jr., grandmother, Cynthia Jackson, great grandparents, Willie Jones, Alfred Malone and Marie Hinton and a host of other family and friends. Friends may call the family owned WYLIE FUNERAL HOME P.A OF BALTIMORE COUNTY, 9200 Liberty Road Sunday from 1-4PM. Services Monday at the Empowerment Temple AME Church, 4217 Primrose Avenue 10:00am wake 11:00am Funeral. Interment Following.

On May 3, 2008 JEAN MATILDA BAKER of Glen Burnie, MD. Daughter of the late Amos and Gladys Baker. Survived by three children Antonio Baker, Melisa Carroll and Nyiesha Carroll; three brothers James, Clifton and Elroy Baker; four sisters Vernida Watts, Iantha Baker, Myrtle Watts and Philicia Baker. Services will be Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at Empowerment Believers Church of Apostolic Faith, 7566 E. Howard Rd., Glen Burnie, MD 21061 at 6 P.M. Pastor Bishop Larry Thomas. Arrangements by Estep Brothers, 1300 Eutaw Pl., Balto.

Controversy surrounding the divorce case of the Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant - the flashy, influential pastor of the Empowerment Temple - will likely be addressed at the annual conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church next month. Bishop Adam J. Richardson Jr., who presides over the Second Episcopal District, which includes Maryland, said that although he was not aware of any formal complaints about Bryant's pending divorce and his wife's allegation of adultery, Richardson planned to broach the topic at the conference in Baltimore.

On October5, 2007, Tyrone AnthoNY Friends may call the WYLIE FUNERAL HOME P.A OF BALTIMORE COUNTY, 9200 Liberty Road on Thursday from 5-8PM. Services Friday Empowerment Temple AME Church, 4217 Primrose Avenue, 10:00 Wake 11:00am Funeral. Entombment Following. Inquiries www.wyliefuneralhome.com

INSIDETODAY What They're saying Today's Sun Columnists Empowerment 101 This year, when Michelle Goldsborough visited family in St. Michaels, she brought along about a dozen youngsters in her Black Youth Empowerment Retreat and Black History Tour. Maryland baltimoresun.com/kane Short-circuited Managers of the Mid-Atlantic electricity grid repeatedly silenced a supposedly independent watchdog who was concerned about excessive profits in newly deregulated electricity markets, internal memos, emails and other documents show.

When Michelle Goldsborough returns to St. Michaels from her New Jersey home, it's usually to visit her relatives in the Talbot County tourist spot. Or sometimes she just might check into a room at the Harbourtowne Golf Resort and Conference Center to be alone. But last weekend when Goldsborough visited the resort - where she worked when she lived in St. Michaels - she had plenty of company. And that's just the way she wanted it. About a dozen youngsters - most of them black boys between the ages of 11 and 17 - were with Goldsborough.

Hundreds of men filled the aisles and surrounded the wooden pews of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church yesterday as a thunderous round of applause filled the somewhat sweltering building. It was Father's Day, and the men of the Upton neighborhood church were being showered with admiration. "Give men a big hand!" the Rev. Frank M. Reid III urged his congregation. He then encouraged his parishioners to hug their fathers. The scene was a powerful image for Dawn Sears of Parkville.

In his single-minded quest to win economic equality for black Americans, Parren J. Mitchell was the opposite of a go-along-to-get-along guy. The former congressman, who died Monday at 85, would be known in Washington as a pragmatist, but at home in Baltimore and at key junctures of his career, Mr. Mitchell wielded an admirably sharp tongue that cut through the haze of a racially troubled era. He charged the Social Security Administration with discrimination because...

Vowing to decrease by half the number of murders in Baltimore this summer, the Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant, whose youth and charisma have propelled him to celebrity status in the area's Christian community, announced yesterday plans for a new crime-fighting initiative called "Stop Sinning" - a play on the infamous inner-city mantra "Stop Snitching." Standing under a white tent before a podium on a West Baltimore street, Bryant, who heads Empowerment Temple AME Church - which began as a congregation of 40 and grew into a megachurch of more than 10,000 under his leadership - called for the city's more than 2,000 places of worship to help decrease the violence and "apathy," that he said has overtaken the city.