Placing stories in historical context and engaging young journalists in social justice movements to better understand issues and to write as a participant rather than a spectator are central elements of Public Square Amplified’s emancipatory journalism mission. A talk co-sponsored by NJ Urban News and Public Square Amplified and held on International Women’s Day, March 8, served as the basis to allow young journalists to examine the elements of emancipatory journalism.

Essex County College kicked off its inaugural Juneteenth event on Thursday, June 15, the start of three days of educational and cultural activities, all located on the Newark campus in the heart of downtown Newark.

To kick off the events, Dr. Akil Khalfani, director of the college’s Africana Institute, moderated a panel discussion on the historical significance of Juneteenth and its importance to the ongoing contemporary struggle for economic and racial justice. Panelists included Dr. Angela R. Garretson of the New Jersey Institute for Technology and Lawrence Hamm, the chairman of the People's Organization for Progress.

The commission and the revealing of the Harriet Tubman monument in what is now, the Harriet Tubman Square, marks a point in our country’s evolution. The monument, entitled a Shadow of a Face, by architect Nina Cooke John, represents a turning point in thought that recognizes that memorials, statues, and monuments should be inspirational.

I grew up in a town called Farmingdale, New Jersey, with my parents and my eight siblings. Although we were just making ends meet, we lived on a one-acre property which my father was farming a garden on a third of it for the family to eat. His kids were not interested in helping, so each year, fewer vegetables were planted. Eventually my father put his farming on hold to concentrate on his full-time job, being a mason. But we always had apple trees, peach trees, and strawberries in our flower beds. Farming was in my father’s bones and part of that legacy is in mine.

Growing up in India, a ball, a bat and a wicket brought children together in the streets. Now, the game of cricket is bringing a group of immigrants together in New Jersey.

On a recent Saturday in Branch Brook Park, a group of men, all of them of Indian heritage, came to play a spirited game of cricket. Eleven spread out on the field of grass. As they wait for their turn to bat, ten others gathered around a tree to cheer on their counterparts. The first hitter (the ‘batsman’) holds the bat in his hand, knees slightly bent, eyes fixed on the player standing some 50 feet away. That player, “the bowler,” twists the ball in his hand, looks up, runs a few feet, and tosses the ball towards the batsman. In a swift movement, the ball connects with the wooden bat and it’s gone traveling across the field. The players closest to the spinning ball stand prepared, eyes scanning the sky for the chance to catch it. Will one succeed, ending the batsman's journey? Will that player be able to throw it back to the bowler and stump the wicket before the batsman makes his way home? And how many runs can the two batsmen make before this occurs? That is cricket.

Theresa Maughan was born and raised in Belize. When she was 5 years old her family emigrated to the United States to be with her father, who came a year before under a work visa. A young girl, she knew nothing of expired visas, deportation or what it meant to be an ‘alien’ in the land of the free. Six years later, in 1971, the family faced deportation and it was Maughan’s fifth-grade teacher who rallied for them.

On Friday, April 8th, the North Jersey chapter of MUHSEN held a community iftar in Paterson's Islamic Center of Passaic County. The iftar brought together disabled Muslims for a night of eating, playing and meeting author Ruba Qasem, who read her inspiring book "The Coolest Career."

More than a hundred community members gathered at the corner of Ivy Street and Tuxedo Parkway in Newark's Ivy Hill neighborhood for a street-renaming event in October. Locals, including friends and family members of Houston Stevens, made sure to give him his flowers while he is still alive.