A 93-year-old woman fought the City of Atlanta and won. Mattie Jackson, pictured above in her home, refused to sell her house to the City after it deemed that the block she lived on in the Peoplestown neighborhood of Atlanta was unsafe. City officials contend that part of the neighborhood, which sits in a low-lying area near Turner Field, is susceptible to flooding of sewage. [Read more…] about Mattie Jackson vs. City of Atlanta for the Associated Press
Documentary
Tau Kappa Epsilon Conclave 2015 in New Orleans
I traveled to New Orleans a couple weeks ago to cover the 2015 Tau Kappa Epsilon 2015 Conclave. In a nutshell, it’s the fraternity’s biannual national convention, where “Tekes,” as their called, handle business matters, fraternize, do community service, and yes, party. It was a glimpse behind the curtain of what fraternities are all about and how they operate, something I knew very little about. [Read more…] about Tau Kappa Epsilon Conclave 2015 in New Orleans
Love Letter to Highway 83
Driving my favorite part of Ga. Highway 83, it’s easy to lose track of time. With only an occasional house or rusted fence to break up the miles of pine trees, irrigated cornfields and rolling pastures dotted with anthills, driving easily takes a back seat to my thoughts. [Read more…] about Love Letter to Highway 83
Chattanooga Shootings for The New York Times
I couldn’t believe it. Not again. Not another rampage shooting where more innocent people lost their lives. The weight of it was slowly starting to sink in as I was making the drive a couple hours north to Chattanooga to cover this terrible story for The New York Times. The nation was still grieving those lost 28 days earlier, in another senseless killing, at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. But this was the reality — a 24-year-old Chattanooga man drove to two different military facilities on July 16, killing four Marines and a Sailor. The suspect, Mohammod Abdulazeez, was killed by police in the gun battle. It still doesn’t make sense — it never will. [Read more…] about Chattanooga Shootings for The New York Times
Omar Shekhey for NPR
Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to document a day in the life of a man making a huge difference in his community. The assignment, for NPR, was on Omar Shekhey, an immigrant from Somali, who moved to Atlanta in the early 1980s to pursue an engineering degree at Georgia Tech. But Shekhey abandoned that dream and now devotes his entire life to helping Somali refugees in Clarkston, a suburb of Atlanta. Most of his day is spent at the Somali American Community Center, which he founded to help refugees with a variety of tasks, such as navigating governmental bureaucracies or how to find jobs. In the afternoon, he runs an after school program at a nearby church that helps Somali children with schoolwork and gives them a sense of community. He finishes the day driving a taxi, the same taxi he often uses to pick up children for the after school program. He hasn’t had a day off in years. [Read more…] about Omar Shekhey for NPR