News and Updates

U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen joined Rev. Dr. Alvin Hathaway, Executive Director of Beloved Community Services Corporation (BCSC), for a tour of the newly restored P.S. 103 elementary school in Baltimore City. Former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall attended P.S. 103 from 1914 to 1921, but the school had fallen into disrepair in recent years. In response, Senator Van Hollen [...]

In just three months, a historic building that has sat vacant in west Baltimore's Upton neighborhood will begin a massive makeover. PS 103 Henry Highland Garnett Community center was a school built in 1877, and at one point was attended by former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. In June 2022, the building will be transformed into an amenity center and [...]

Former state senator Michael Mitchell reminisces about his time at Public School 103 in Upton, Thurgood Marshall’s boyhood school. Michael Mitchell stood on the Division Street sidewalk and spoke of how he helped a crew deliver coal from a horse-drawn wagon to his then elementary school. Mitchell, who went on to represent his home neighborhood in the Baltimore City Council [...]

Pastor and community activist Rev. Alvin C. Hathaway will be stepping down as leader of West Baltimore’s Union Baptist Church in August, closing out 14 years of service to the historic institution. At that time, he will hand the reins to an assistant pastor who may advance to lead pastor in the coming years. “To be the 10th pastor of [...]

Its unique way to hold local leaders accountable and that's what one Baltimore pastor is trying to start up in Chattanooga. The program is called "Act Now". Pastor Alvin Hathaway says creating Act Now has not only held leaders accountable in Baltimore but has also made city leaders more transparent. He says the same could happen right here in Chattanooga [...]

The nation’s first African Ancestry Neuroscience Research Initiative (AANRI) announced today $2.25 million in startup funding from the investment management firm Brown Capital Management (BCM) and the State of Maryland. The goals of the AANRI are to close the gap in brain research that has consistently underrepresented African Americans and to create the most comprehensive African-ancestry, brain-genomic dataset in the [...]

The Lieber Institute for Brain Development has received a $1 million, two-year grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to support the work of the African Ancestry Neuroscience Research Initiative (AANRI) to promote racial equity throughout the field of neuroscience. AANRI began in 2019 as a collaboration between African American community leaders in Baltimore, the Lieber Institute for Brain Development—located on [...]