Social justice

Judge Julie Rebecca Rubin ruled that Erie Insurance and The Maryland Insurance Administration have up to 60 days to come to a resolution following the administration’s finding in May that the Pennsylvania-based insurance company used discriminatory practices against Black Baltimore-area brokers, and thus its residents.

Legal actions attacking affirmative action programs threaten to halt or reverse the gains in minority business development in this region and elsewhere, says Sharon Pinder, the president and CEO of the Capital Region Minority Supplier Development Council.

Here’s what it looks like after a mass shooting in Maryland’s small-town capital.

As marijuana laws are reformed in Maryland, measures are needed to help repair the disproportionate damage the application of those laws did to Black communities and to Black men, Banner columnist E.R. Shipp says.

The Banner asked LGBTQ Marylanders what Pride Month means to them and what are the biggest challenges facing the community? Here are some of their answers.

Providing affordable and flexible consumer loans to people who don’t have access to traditional banking services can transform lives and help boost the economies of places like Baltimore, says Kasra Movahedi, executive director of the International Rescue Committee’s Center for Economic Opportunity.

Nonprofit hospitals can put into place a stopgap measure to help cover care for people ineligible for health insurance, such as those without documentation, say people familiar with a Johns Hopkins program that serves uninsured East Baltimore residents.

Pennsylvania-based Erie Insurance discriminated against a Black-owned insurance brokerage firm and ultimately against Black Baltimoreans, according to a recent opinion by the Maryland Insurance Administration.

So, a washed-up rock star makes a video shooting up Bud Light because a trans person lifted a can of the beer on TikTok. Here’s a drink to take that bad taste out of your mouth, America. Forward Brewing, the nanobrewery in Annapolis, will release the second edition of its Pride beer on Tuesday. It's a kick-off to the city’s Pride week, a refreshing lager and a pint-sized political statement all in one.

The promise the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling held for many in Baltimore and elsewhere stands in sharp contrast to enduring school segregation almost 70 years later, Banner columnist E.R. Shipp says.

This year's Preakness marks 125 years since Willie Simms, one of the most successful riders of his time and one of the first to adopt the modern rider position and technique, won the race and became the only Black jockey to win all three Triple Crown events.

Decriminalizing drug paraphernalia is one step Maryland can take toward ending policies that have failed to curb an epidemic of drug-related deaths, says Jessie Dunleavy, an advocate for drug policy reform.

John Merzbacher, a former teacher at Catholic Community School of Baltimore who was convicted of sexual abuse and the repeated rape of a student in the ’70s, has died.

A ceremony Friday capped 40 years of struggle to open a waterfront park in Anne Arundel County, involving historic forces that continue to limit public access to the Chesapeake Bay, difficult negotiations with neighbors and disagreement over the right way to balance 340 acres of impossible beauty as both an environmental treasure and recreational jewel.

The scope of the problem in Baltimore is enormous, city documents show.

Anne Arundel County opened Beverly Triton Nature Park Friday, a rare Chesapeake Bay beach open to the public through a daily pass system. Located about 30 minutes south of Annapolis on the Mayo Peninsula, the park opened four decades after the county bought the one-time segregated resort.

Black residents of the Deal Island peninsula endure hardships to cling to the land where their enslaved ancestors once lived, says Rona Kobell, a Banner contributor and co-founder of the Environmental Justice Journalism Initiative, which produced the film “Eroding History.”

Book-banning and other censorship efforts were a threat to journalistic freedom 100 years ago, and they still are today, DeWayne Wickham, The Banner’s public editor, says.

Organizers asked me to moderate a panel on racial and social justice because I’ve been reporting on these ideas for much of my career as a journalist. But listening to people who focus on this issue daily provided some revelations worth sharing.

Baltimore needs to establish a Land Bank Authority to bring more investment to underserved neighborhoods, says Krystle Okafor, director of policy and planning at SHARE Baltimore.