Rights Leaders

Carl O. Snowden, civil rights chief for the Maryland attorney general's office, was charged in Baltimore District Court with marijuana possession Friday — the same day he announced a voluntary leave of absence from his job — according to online court records. He was under court supervision for a drunken-driving conviction at the time of the arrest, and could face 60 days in jail if Anne Arundel County prosecutors pursue a probation-violation charge against him. "We are confident that Mr. Snowden will not be found guilty," Snowden's lawyer, Carey J. Hansel III, said in an emailed statement.

Back in 1963, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his now famous "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington, the National Mall overflowed with people who'd traveled from near and far seeking equality for all Americans. Almost a half-century later, visitors to Washington have the chance to bear witness to history and "the dream" as a national memorial to honor King is dedicated Aug. 28, a date that coincides with the 48th anniversary of that groundbreaking march.

A $150 million plan to revitalize downtown Baltimore's West Side was rejected Thursday by a city design review panel after local civil rights and preservation leaders warned that it would demolish a key landmark in the history of America's civil rights movement. Baltimore's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel voted to withhold approval of schematic plans for the Lexington Square retail and housing project until the developers and city officials addressed questions about a proposal to tear down the former Read's Drug Store at Howard and Lexington streets and other buildings within the so-called Superblock.

Civil rights and preservation leaders in Baltimore voiced strong objections Wednesday to a developer's proposal to raze part of downtown's Superblock, warning that the city would lose a priceless link to its past. The plan by Lexington Square Partners calls for demolition of the former Read's drugstore, a vacant, city-owned building at the southeast corner of Howard and Lexington streets. According to historians, that store was the site of an early civil rights protest in which Morgan College students staged a sit-in on Jan. 20, 1955.

The Elena Kagan hearings were a sleepy affair. With no 12th-hour revelations and a candidate who acquitted herself as cagey and well qualified, the solicitor general proved adept at the kabuki dance of the Supreme Court confirmation process. Yet there was one exception to the otherwise humdrum hearings: the bewildering decision by Republicans to taint Ms. Kagan by her association with Thurgood Marshall. Yes, that Thurgood Marshall — Baltimore native, hero of the civil rights movement, mastermind of Brown v. Board of Education, and the first African-American Supreme Court justice.

Carl O. Snowden, a longtime Annapolis activist and director of the Office of Civil Rights for the attorney general's office, was arrested early Tuesday and charged with alcohol-related driving offenses, according to Anne Arundel police. Snowden, 55, was arrested after a county police officer saw his Acura Integra drifting in and out of his southbound lane on Route 97 near Farm Road in Crownsville, police said. It was Snowden's third DUI arrest since 2002. Shortly before 1:30 a.m., the arresting officer reported that Snowden veered across the center line and straddled the shoulder several times before the officer pulled him over.

To Baltimoreans who knew him best, the Rev. Benjamin L. Hooks was more than a civil rights legend, more than a fiery orator who could bring down the house with an effortless blend of Scripture, poetry and humor. He was also an affable mentor who inspired a new generation of NAACP leaders. Mr. Hooks, who died Thursday in Nashville at the age of 85, was best known for leading the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for 16 years. He was also a Baptist preacher, crusading attorney, the first African-American to be appointed a criminal judge in Tennessee and the first to be named to the Federal Communications Commission.

With drums, bells and other instruments, children were raising the roof Sunday at Port Discovery in Baltimore, as part of the 10th annual "I Have A Dream Weekend" festivities honoring the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. On Day 2 of the three-day celebration, scores of children sat in a large studio of the children's museum, beating djembe West African drums while others shook cowbells and whacked tambourines. They tried to keep up with Jonathan Murray, drum circle facilitator, and his partner, Daveed Korup, who built the African rhythms to a crescendo as loud as an Eastern Shore summer thunderstorm.