In 2023, approximately 2.5 local newspapers shut down each week. This national downhill trend has continued in 2024 and is hitting home in New Jersey. Decisions made by the Newark Morning Ledger Co. and NJ Advance Media have led to the print closures and full closures of multiple local New Jersey news outlets.

Newark, NJ - The bustling intersection at Broad and Market Streets is a prime location for shopping, featuring a variety of department stores and street vendors. It’s also a public transportation thoroughfare making it an ideal spot to engage with folks.

About 15 members of the Major Taylor Cycling Club of New Jersey met up on a recent Sunday morning in downtown Newark. They set out on an epic five-day, roughly 500-mile ride that ended in Montreal. Award-winning photographer Brian Branch-Price met up with the cyclists as they launched on the first leg of the journey.

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.

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."

Like many other young people during the 2020 pandemic, 14-year-old Ariyan Wint found herself stuck at home with nothing to do. She enrolled in the New Jersey After School All-Stars program (ASAS), and it proved to be one of the most intriguing times of her young life. The program inspired her to start her own business: 'Lipology by Ari,' a beauty, cosmetics, and personal care brand.

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.