View my work in The Bay State Banner from January 2020 to June 2021. To read all published pieces, visit The Bay State Banner’s website.
JUNE 2021
D.C. congressional rep. is Roxbury native
Roxbury native Oye Owolewa made history as the first Nigerian American elected as a shadow representative for the U.S. Congress. Now, he’s launched a campaign to spread awareness for D.C. statehood.
MAY 2021
Former employees boycott Marriott Copley
Kiki Patino had worked at the Marriott Copley for more than 16 years before she was fired without warning in September.
“The main thing that I got was anxiety,” she said during a recent phone call with the Banner. “At that moment, I was the main supporter for my whole family.”
MARCH 2021
Group pushes for reform to vocational school admissions
Activists gathered in a Zoom meeting March 18 to address discrimination within the state’s regional vocational school admissions process, which uses a ranking system to admit student bodies that are mostly white, English-language speakers.
FEBRUARY 2021
Boston’s other underground railroad
Boston has always been at the forefront of American history. Nevertheless, residents may know little about the city’s link to the underground railroad, a life-saving network of safe houses established by slaves before the Civil War.
JANUARY 2021
Bostonians reflect on King’s unfinished agenda
In early 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led his first Northern protest on the streets of Boston. As he marched with other peaceful demonstrators from Roxbury to Boston Common, King saw a city rife with segregation and politically dominated by whites. Fifty-five years later, many Bostonians are ready to usher in a new era of Black women in positions of power, both nationally, as Kamala Harris becomes vice president, and locally, with a Black woman slated to become acting mayor and another launching her mayoral candidacy.
Kenneal Patterson 