By Carl Kenney
December 12, 2019
By Brittany Cowan Education is a complex, often controversial topic for discussion, as the viewpoints of teachers, legislators, and community leaders can sometimes result in bitter conflict. In Durham County, the non-profit organization StudentU has been on a mission since 2005 to shift the conversation towards educational equity and serving student populations that may otherwise […]
Read moreBy Aaliyah Bowden
November 17, 2019
Abortion, women’s reproductive rights, and gender equality will be on the ballot in the 2020 presidential election. With that in mind, NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina, located in Durham, has joined 10 other participating organizations in launching a petition to make affordable reproductive health care an important topic on the debate stage. “The petition is asking […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
October 8, 2019
Angier Avenue in historic East Durham has seen its fair share of added concrete, construction, and changes to the neighborhood within recent years. This ever-changing landscape we call Durham is becoming a host to new faces, housing spaces, and local businesses at a dizzying pace. One of those newcomers, Sofia’s Pizza, opened its doors to […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
October 2, 2019
“We want you to feel like you are welcomed here, we want you to feel like family,”
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
July 30, 2019
Katrina Hayes, an Autism advocate, is passionate about bringing her craft into the streets of Raleigh and the surrounding areas. Hayes is a mother of a child with Autism and has occasionally hosted fundraising events to help the cause. “As the mother of a child with Autism, I have to be very cognizant where my […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
May 23, 2019
This is a podcast series being produced and reported for the Durham VOICE. With this project, we’re reconnecting with people who were once involved with the VOICE and its community, allowing them to share their journeys and experiences since working with the newspaper. To wrap up this season of DVV, this week we’re doing […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
April 10, 2019
This is a podcast series being produced and reported for the Durham VOICE. With this project, we’re reconnecting with people who were once involved with the VOICE and its community, allowing them to share their journeys and experiences since working with the newspaper. This week, DVV welcomes Zenzele Barnes. Zenzele was the VOICE’s first ever […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
A couple hugging as the sun sets in Woodstock, a woman crying in despair after she sees Martin Luther King Jr. lying in his coffin, a Ku Klux Klan member, arms folded as a cross behind him engulfs in flames. These are just three of the moments expertly captured by famed photographer Burk Uzzle, an […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
The sun shines down on the picturesque spring afternoon of April 6 at Durham’s Bull City Ciderworks, and Independent Animal Rescue (IAR) is gathering nine of its foster dogs for its latest adoption event. The outdoor space includes a deck and large grassy area. Dozens of Durham residents are spread out across picnic tables, donning […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
Although the 22nd annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival has come to an end, UNC-TV will continue highlighting the work of award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson throughout the month. On Tuesday, April 23, UNC-TV will premiere Nelson’s most recent documentary, “Boss: The Black Experience in Business.” The film touches on rarely discussed stories of black entrepreneurship […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
In sports, the scoreboard often serves as the judge, jury and executioner — the measure of success or failure at the end of the game. But the Hillside High School baseball program refuses to measure its success only in wins and losses on the baseball diamond. The players and coaches understand that success can mean […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
March 27, 2019
As a 9-year-old, Kriddie Whitmore took a field trip to Ellerbe Creek that sparked her interest in preserving and removing invasive plants. She often relives this fond memory by preserving areas near her childhood home as a nature preserve steward with the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association (ECWA). “It’s a very volunteer-centered organization, and they always […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
Partners for Youth Opportunity changed three students’ lives for the better on March 14 when they awarded scholarships worth $1,000 each to help pay for their college education. The scholarships were originally meant for high school students going into college, but now can be awarded to students already in college. The recipients chosen for the […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
It’s the crisp Saturday morning of March 23, and nonprofit groups are slowly setting up tables on the sidewalk outside of the Durham Bulls Athletic Park for the 24th annual Great Human Race, hosted by the Triangle Nonprofit & Volunteer Leadership Center (TNVLC). Many of the tables are covered in posters, pamphlets and brochures to […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
Earlier this month, as part of the NeXt Doc Fellows, a fellowship which promotes 20 to 24-year-olds identified as the next generation of documentary filmmakers, I attended the True/False Documentary Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri. I watched “The Commons,” a film about the protests surrounding the Silent Sam statue and the Pit. I watched […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
February 27, 2019
After nearly 20 years, the Latino Community Credit Union continues to do more than provide North Carolina’s Latino community with a safe place to store their earnings. A credit union founded in Durham in 2000, LCCU works to educate and empower all communities by offering a financial education program and savings, checking, loans and credit […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
V’Aondre Mack, 16, always loved being in a barbershop. Now, the Holton Career and Resource Center is giving him the opportunity to work in one someday. “I’ve always been in a barbershop since I was young,” the Southern High School (SSES) junior said. “Me, my dad and my little brother went to the barbershop every […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
When Jenne Mondry was interviewed for a position teaching English at Hillside High School last summer, it was proposed to her that she teach journalism and take over the school’s newspaper. For Mondry, it was daunting. “I let them know that I had not done that before, but I had done the yearbook at a […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
As the Saturday morning rain pooled in the parking lot, a dozen Durham Police Department squad cars sat parked along the sidewalk leading up to the Holt Athletic Association Gymnasium. To passersby, the outside view may have signaled something was wrong. But within the yellow walls of the gym, cheers and laughter bubbled over, disarming […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
Filmmaker Dennis Leroy Kangalee had set out to create a masterpiece. Less than one year after his debut film, “As an Act of Protest” was released, Kangalee sent that masterpiece flying off the balcony of a hotel in Germany. Kangalee’s independent film is a 144-minute-long drama whose unedited, anti-Hollywood aesthetic and emotionally raw acting seek […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
After 47 years, “Swing School,” a community favorite production for many decades, returned to the stage at Hillside High School. The Hillside High School Drama Department – under the direction of Wendell Tabb – put on four performances of its new adaptation, called “Hallelujah! Swing School,” from Feb. 15-17. The production has long been a Hillside […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
Every third Saturday of the month, transgender and gender-nonconforming people in the Research Triangle gather at the LGBTQ Center of Durham – located at 114 Hunt Street – for its closet event, a chance for attendees to browse free clothing without fear of judgment, according to coordinators and attendees. The event began in August 2016 when the Center was […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
February 23, 2019
Lamont Liles runs around the gym with the type of excitement a teenager should have. He is comfortable, happy, and without a care in the world as he plays basketball to pass the time until his mother comes home from work. Northeast Central Durham’s Holton Career & Resource Center, located at 400 N. Driver […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
February 13, 2019
On an unseasonably warm Saturday morning, Fayetteville Street was even busier than normal as hundreds of Durham residents showed up for the 17th Annual North Carolina MLK Black History Month Parade & Block Party. The event, presented by Spectacular Magazine, is held on the first Saturday of every February. For entertainment columnist Tameka Nichole, […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
The words, “You can do it” reverberated through Tiffany Agerston’s head. She never forgot those words of encouragement, spoken by her chorus teachers when she was younger in an effort to get Agerston to share her singing talent at the annual “An Evening of Entertainment” (EOE) put on by the Durham Public Schools. Agerston eventually […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
Four years ago, Hayti Heritage Center presented the first Black History: Artists’ Perspectives exhibition to honor African-American artists. Now an annual event, Hayti opened the 2019 exhibition on Feb. 1. The exhibition began in 2016 when Willie Bigelow, an artist and Durham resident, approached Angela Lee, the executive director at Hayti, to bring an event to […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
A black playwright has turned his personal experience into the play, “The Talk,” through dramatizing a difficult conversation he had with his son about the racialization of America. Sonny Kelly, a UNC-Chapel Hill doctoral candidate and performer in “The Talk,” wrote the play in 2015 after explaining the 2015 Baltimore protests to his then 7-year-old […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
Rashard Lee-Worthy, in just his first year as the head basketball coach at Hillside High School, is building something special. His Hornets started the season by winning their first 19 games, passing, jumping and dunking their way through a tough non-conference slate and a tougher Big Eight 3A Conference schedule. Quickly, Hillside has rallied around […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
Longtime writer, producer, director and now-Durham resident Lana Garland fell into filmmaking because a movie spoke to her. Literally. In 1989, Garland bought a ticket to see Spike Lee’s film “Do the Right Thing,” the iconic movie she says was “revolutionary” for the budding black film industry. In the film, she was moved by a […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
As a child, Anthony Nelson, 25, from Durham, originally wanted to be an organic chemist. Those dreams quickly changed when as a freshman he was randomly placed in a dance class at Hillside High School. “I remember not signing up for dance at all. It was just on my schedule as an extracurricular,” Nelson said. […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
Angel Hope’s first day of class at Hillside High School, a significant event in any teenager’s life, was supposed to be Aug. 27, 2015. But the day would soon prove to be even more important as she gave birth to her daughter, Gabrielle, at the age of 15. Four first days of school and three […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
According to the 2017 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, about 1,200 homeless people are living in shelters or transitional housing in Durham. Robin, who asked to keep her last name anonymous to protect her children’s identity, is one of them. Robin, a veteran and National Guardsman, is staying at a shelter in Durham with her three […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
This Black History Month, Mount Vernon Baptist Church on Roxboro Street in Durham will acknowledge the past with films, books and faith. The Durham church will have free film screenings every Wednesday in February at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday morning discussions at 9:30 a.m. It hosted a conversation on the autobiography “Proud Shoes: The Story […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
The first day of classes normally begins with introductions. Students share their names, hometowns and favorite movies or books. But when Audrey Muhammad begins her first class each semester, she shares something interesting about herself before asking her students to do the same. “I have a magazine, and I love to write,” Muhammad tells them. […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
This is a podcast series being produced and reported for the Durham VOICE. With this project, we’re reconnecting with people who were once involved with the VOICE and its community, allowing them to share their journeys and experiences since working with the newspaper. This week’s guest on DVV is LaMon Jones. LaMon worked as […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
January 30, 2019
The Habitat for Humanity building site on the corner of Dowd Street and North Elizabeth Street felt surprisingly quiet for an active construction zone. Not for lack of activity — three volunteers along with the site supervisor were busy building a sizable shed in the backyard of the soon-to-be home of five. But between the […]
Read moreBy Carl Kenney
This is a new podcast series being produced and reported for the Durham VOICE. With this project, we’re reconnecting with people who were once involved with the VOICE and its community, allowing them to share their journeys and experiences since working with the newspaper. Our guest this week is Yusuf Shah, who worked […]
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