Fannie Lou Hamer

A FEW days before the election, I called a friend in Lo Angeles, only to have her answering machine tell me that she was out working on political campaigns because, while I had dialed, the national debt had risen $475,000 and 20 more people lost jobs.Let's hope the people we have just elected -- especially the women of the House, the Senate and the state legislatures -- get the message: This is not just about high-profile jobs for you. With four new senators and 24 women newly elected to the House, we can now truly call this the Year of the Woman.

OUR SYSTEM of privately financed politics has a discriminatory impact on African-Americans. For that reason, black voices must be heard in the debate about how the system should be reformed, including the current debate in the Maryland General Assembly. Full public financing of political campaigns would improve the quality of democracy, government and life for blacks. The most effective method of eliminating the inequalities of the current system is to provide ample public funding to legitimate candidates who agree to limit their campaign spending and refrain from raising money from private sources.

Three events in Carroll County will celebrate the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Former Students and Friends of Robert Moton School will hold its 14th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. tomorrow at Martin's Westminster in 140 Village Shopping Center. The Rev. Mitchell O. Thomas from Payne Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore will speak, and the Morgan State University choir will sing. The Rev. Dr. Howard W. Hinson, pastor of Union Street United Methodist Church, will give the blessing and benediction.

Lynton Keith Caldwell, 92, who helped shape the nation's policy requiring environmental impact studies for major projects, died Tuesday at his home in Bloomington, Ind. Dr. Caldwell, a professor emeritus at Indiana University, helped write the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. His draft resolution, much of which was incorporated into the act, required environmental impact studies for all major federal projects that would significantly affect the environment. He helped create Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

A 20-year-old Severn woman accused of getting a 16-year-old girl drunk at her home and engaging in sexual activities with her pleaded guilty yesterday to a fourth-degree sex offense. The plea agreement calls for Shannon M. Jones of the 7900 block of Telegraph Road to testify at the trial of her boyfriend and be sentenced by Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Clayton Greene Jr. afterward. Gregory I. Mills, 28, of the same address, is scheduled to stand trial in January on similar charges related to the incident.

From her home in Highland Beach, Elizabeth Jean West Langston often walks next door to the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center to give tours of his former summer home. She unlocks the door, then begins telling stories about artifacts from Douglass' life - the trunk he took to Europe, the game table where he played checkers with his grandchildren, the chair in which he rocked. "I've gone through it so often that sometimes I go through it too fast," said Langston, 63, who helped lead the effort to get the legendary abolitionist's home turned into a museum in 1996.

Three events in Carroll County will celebrate the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Former Students and Friends of Robert Moton School will hold its 14th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Martin's Westminster in 140 Village Shopping Center. The Rev. Mitchell O. Thomas from Payne Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore will speak, and the Morgan State University choir will sing. The Rev. Dr. Howard W. Hinson, pastor of Union Street United Methodist Church, will give the blessing and benediction.

The balance of legislative power in Maryland tips farther away from Baltimore under the new legislative boundaries that quietly became law Friday. The city loses two of its 18 delegates and will have to share a senator with Baltimore County under the map, drawn by Gov. Martin O'Malley. It became law Friday, the 45th day of the General Assembly session, because lawmakers, as expected, took no action to change it. The map adds two majority African-American districts to the 47-member state Senate and creates the state's first majority Hispanic House of Delegates district.

Herbert L. Singleton Jr., the special assistant to the president of Sojourner-Douglass College and a community activist, died in his sleep Wednesday of an apparent heart attack at his Belvedere Square home. He was 56. Mr. Singleton advised the East Baltimore school for the past 15 years and helped create a scholarship program for public housing residents striving for a college education. Born in Charleston, S.C., and raised in the Cherry Hill and Edmondson Village neighborhoods, he was a 1965 graduate of City College.

From her home in Highland Beach, Elizabeth Jean West Langston often walks next door to the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center to give tours of his former summer home. She unlocks the door, then begins telling stories about artifacts from Douglass' life - the trunk he took to Europe, the game table where he played checkers with his grandchildren, the chair in which he rocked. "I've gone through it so often that sometimes I go through it too fast," said Langston, 63, who helped lead the effort to get the legendary abolitionist's home turned into a museum in 1996.