CUMBERLAND — The February edition of Allegany Magazine is a person that highlights users of the African American local community and their ongoing initiatives and activism in Allegany County.
“Shortly just after Allegany Magazine printed an version spotlighting the subject of pride and customers of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood, we started hearing from individuals in the Black community,” reported Shane Riggs, Allegany Magazine’s controlling editor. “They asked us, ‘When is Allegany Magazine going to be brave plenty of to deal with the subject of race in this place and print an African American or people today of color version?’ The solution is — proper now. February 2022. In honor of African American Heritage and History Thirty day period. And it is an edition that is possibly way overdue.”
The protect of the magazine characteristics Stephen Heath Gates of Cumberland in a photograph taken by community photographer Aaron Frazier of Incogneato Imagery. In the art globe, when a person of shade is painted or editorially photographed shirtless — or even putting on much less — customarily it means that at the time of the portrait, the subject was a happy “free man.” He experienced after been a slave and is now “free” of the chains and restraints put on him by previous house owners or even by white society.
“We’d like to especially thank Tifani Fisher and the Allegany County chapter of the NAACP for their help with this version,” said Riggs. “We even asked them for assistance when it arrived to what to title this function. ‘Influential Folks of Color’ was the agreed on expression.”
Fisher also has a reader commentary involved in the edition, updating visitors on what she sees as the present-day condition of affairs and gatherings in the region.
“When I hear people today from exterior of these mountains say ‘beyond Hagerstown there are no Black people’ I truly feel like shouting and pulling my hair out,” Fisher writes in her Allegany Magazine contribution. “One of my ambitions is to not just allow people outside these mountains know we are here but teach them our background so they know we have been in this article. That we aided establish this state with blood, sweat, tears and rebuilding about and around.”
Mandela Echefu, the proprietor of WheelzUp Adventures in Cumberland, also has an editorial piece in the February concern.
“When you glimpse at the history of Cumberland, Frostburg and Allegany County, you master that African Us citizens have lived and aided construct this neighborhood for decades,” Echefu submits. “Save for the number of mentions this team of men and women obtained for vanishing times through the 28 or 29 days of February just about every calendar year, the breath of their contributions socially, economically and culturally are not only amiss in societal consciousness, I am not absolutely sure they are actually valued.”
Riggs explained he would like to see the “People of Color” edition become an once-a-year feature.
“Contrary to the feeling some people living exterior our region may perhaps have, Allegany County is an location wealthy in lifestyle, the arts, the sciences and instruction. We are an space that usually does not get credit score for all the excellent that takes place right here,” stated Riggs. “With this compact and humble giving of a unique difficulty-related version of Allegany Journal, we hope to be element of the alternative and aspect of a larger dialogue and honest dialogue about race in our group.”
For that purpose, the February concern also highlights the “30 Most Influential Persons of Color” in Allegany County.
“The names and vibrant faces you are about to see have been submitted to us from previous and present correspondents, from the employees listed here at Allegany Journal and our sister publication, the Cumberland Moments-News, from elected officials, from activists and from people in the neighborhood who heard about this version and needed to be absolutely sure an individual they admired was integrated,” Riggs explained. “These are individuals who by their tireless is effective, steps, deeds, determination, life and legacy are contributing or have contributed to our area in wealthy, lively and superb strategies. These are the people you preserve hearing about, seeing on the information or looking through about in the newspaper. And we believed probably our readers would like to get to know them just a little little bit far better.”
The people highlighted within the February version incorporate Parris Ashley, Clifton Brooks, Kia Corthorn, Jay Daniels, Alice Darr, Tony Dyson, Mandela Echefu, Jeney Felton, Tifani Fisher, Eugene Frazier, Henry Louis Gates, Stephen Heath Gates, Saiquan Jenkins, Frank Hamilton, Jarrod Harper, Ty Johnson, Juanita Cage Lewis, Ariyana Monee, Fulton Myers, Henry Newby, Shana Oshiro, William Clinton Rate III, Ian Robinson, Keenan Scott II, David Smith, Jerris Smith, Derik Stephens, Aubrey Stewart, Sid Thomas and Eugene More youthful.
The February edition also highlights N Da Cutt Barbershop and All That to Go, two highly regarded local Black-owned corporations normally takes a tour of the historical Jane Gates home in a story by Ellen McDaniel-Weissler explores African American tradition from the previous with author Lynn Bowman spotlights the Broadway present “Thoughts of a Colored Man” and the play’s connection to Allegany County in a story by Ty DeMartino and provides a particular memorial to Fort Hill’s “Number Three” with information of the scholarship started in his memory.
Allegany Magazine is out there by membership and via single duplicate gross sales at far more than 40 retail partners in Allegany, Bedford, Hampshire and Mineral counties.