What a homecoming! The Obamas and the Bidens — on their whistle-stop train trip from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. — made a stop in Baltimore, where I was born and raised. It’s where I was once refused entrance to an amusement park on the Baltimore County line because of the color of my skin. Did [...]

Washington is holding its breath — and it’s not just because of 14-degree weather. The city is getting ready for Tuesday’s inauguration of a new president and it wants everything to be perfect. On Friday bleachers set-up outside the White House stood empty. That will change. A few bundled-up pilgrims made their way to peek [...]

What’s in a name? I know what’s in mine. My grandmother on my mother’s side died when my older sister was an infant. My parents promised that if they had another daughter, they would honor my late grandmother. So that’s how this fifth and final child of Thomas and Evelyn Curtis came to be named [...]

I suppose it was inevitable that media folk should at first insist on describing Barack Obama as the first African-American president-elect. Even now some are still pinching themselves, finding it hard to believe that this is so. The other day MSNBC’s Chris Matthews confessed as much on the air during his “Hardball” program. My hope [...]