Homewood Nation

Two weeks ago we were discussing, on these pages of Homewood Nation, whether or not President Obama should have made a swing through Pittsburgh’s African American neighborhoods to wave at his most ardent and unapologetic supporters as he visited the Tech Shop in Bakery Square. At the time I said that I thought that the president made frequent trips to Southwestern Pennsylvania to streng...

I went into today's event at TechShop with a rough outline of expectations of how things would go with President Obama.

He did not follow my script.

He led with an announcement about the capture of Abu Khatalla, an alleged mastermind...

Further observations and questions regarding the Animal Rescue League project and residents' responses. Grab a cup of your beverage of choice; this is going to take a while:

In the citations below, TR = the Tribune-Review's story about the first meeting; PG1, PG2, PG3 = Post-Gazette stories following the first, second and third meetings; UMT = Urban Media Today's story, which came after the third meeting.

I) Altogether, the three P-G stories quote a tota...

A few days ago, the Post-Gazette published what was surely last week's best headline:

"Pittsburgh's East End residents growl at plan for new animal shelter."

The story was the last of three within six weeks about the Animal Rescue League's plan to move a couple of blocks east from its location in Larimer, to the corner of Dallas and Hamilton Avenues - and residents' responses to the plan.

The Tribune-Re...

For lovers of Homewood, the year 2014 has gotten off to a dramatic, intriguing, challenging start.

On January 6, Homewood artist and poet Vanessa German thrilled attendees at Mayor Bill Peduto's inauguration with a spoken word piece that brought the audience at Heinz Hall to their feet, and that made me, watching it with my wife on TV, want and wish to be the kind of neighbor, the kind of Pittsburgher, that she ...

This post is addressed to my neighbors in Homewood...Greetings!

I want to propose a long-term, coordinated, community-wise response to the violence that resurged in Homewood last month.

I propose a campaign in which residents take a pledge to provide law enforcement with information.

We all know that there are people in Homewood, other than the actors themselves, who could provide the police with useful information. We also all u...

Greetings All,

After attending another follow-up meeting regarding the Henderson and Stewart incident again at CEA (Community Empowerment Association) there were a host of people that got up and told us about their incidents regarding Police misconduct and I thought that we need to document these stories and what better place to put them but here on Homewood Nation!  Also, I think that we all need to post more on this site and that this site should be our reposi...

My previous post regarding the Supreme Court's decision of the Voting Rights Act was actually my second missive on the subject. Over at The Pittsburgh Comet, I made some other observations as ...

There is a very simple reason why the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 doesn’t really matter for Homewood:

We don’t vote.

No law or government action will ever be as effective at disenfranchising African-Americans from registering to vote or voting as African-Americans are at disen...

Journalist Rossano Stewart (striped shirt) and schoolteacher Dennis Henderson (yellow shirt) in handcuffs after a police officer arrested them, according to Mr. Stewart, for obstructing the street.

(UPDATE, 6/27/2013, 12:27 pm - Quotes from Mr. Henderson, addtional commentary at end, new link to extended video.

UPDATE, 6/28/2013, 1:54 am - Mr. Hende...