Commentary

Commentary 

A Crisis in Plain Sight: Withheld Federal Education Funds Threaten Maryland’s Blueprint for Reform

Lorraine Jonhs-De La Garza and Sophie Smith

More than $6.2 billion in federal education funds — approved under the FY2025 budget and scheduled for release on July 1 — remains frozen. The Trump Administration insists this is part of an “ongoing review,” but to the parents, teachers, and students staring down the first day of school without the support they were promised, it looks more like sabotage. The longer these funds remain impounded, the deeper the damage — not just to school budgets, but to the futures of children across the country. And while the crisis is national, the impact in Maryland is particularly acute.

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Negro voting in Cardoza [i.e., Cardozo] High School in [Washington,] D.C. / [MST]." Original black and white negative by Marion S. Trikosko. Taken November 3rd, 1964, Washington D.C, United States (@libraryofcongress). Colorized by Jordan J. Lloyd. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003688167/
Commentary 

The Voting Rights Act Turns 60 — Maryland Puts It to the Test

Mariame Diop and Kacy Alejo-Rios

Voting rights in Maryland are under siege — and for Latino, Black, naturalized citizens, and working-class voters, the danger isn’t abstract. It’s happening right now, in courtrooms and committee hearings, in bureaucratic rule changes and so-called “integrity” lawsuits designed to do one thing: make it harder for people to vote. And as we approach the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we’re forced to ask ourselves — have we learned anything from the past?

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Blogs Earl Yarington 

A Geopolitical Conundrum: Only Leverage Works When All Have It

Earl Yarington

I used to want nothing more than the Iranian government to collapse. After the events of last week, I’ve changed my mind. Governments are bigger than me or anyone else. I have never met anyone from Iran, and I had no chance to speak to an Iranian government official. If I did, the CIA would probably be following me around. It turns out that, as Americans, we are not free.

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Commentary 

To be African American on July 4th

K. Ward Cummings

My family has a secret. I discovered it last month during my Aunt Dot’s 80th birthday party when one of her grandchildren asked her why she never mentions her own grandparents. She never met them, was her answer. She knew one great-grandmother on her mother’s side, a former slave, who came to live with them briefly when she was five, but that was it. My aunt has six siblings, including my mother. To the best of my recollection, I can never remember any of them ever mentioning their grandparents. 

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