DCentric

Good morning, DCentric readers! Ready for some links?

Where are the angels? Eleventh hour angels needed, to save things like the Kids Farm at the National Zoo. “Even more poignant was one of the zoo volunteer’s perspectives. “Sometimes, this is the closest some inner-city kids will come to being on a farm,” he told me. He was a teacher for 31 years….”This is it for a lot of kids, this place.” (The Washington Post)

Black residents post high HIV, AIDS rates despite drop And over the river…”Diagnoses of HIV and AIDS infections are dropping in Northern Virginia, but public health officials are battling disproportionately high rates of infection among black residents.” (Washington Examiner )

The Beginning Of The Martin Luther King Memorial Six months ’til the unveiling: “In a way the memorial is a lot like the Civil Rights Movement: everybody’s on board now that its almost complete, but in the beginning, it was tough and by no means a sure thing.” (WUSA Washington, DC)

Teen Mob Attacks at Metro Station Man witnessed mob attacking teen, tried to help: “A woman urged Joy to call 911. When he took out his phone to call police, the teen mob turned on him, he said. The teenagers knocked Joy to the ground and kicked him in the face.” No help from station employees, either. (NBC Washington)

Report: D.C. Council chairman’s SUV was illegal Law that requires 22+ mpg for staff cars is routinely broken: “City officials broke the law by providing D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown a fully loaded Lincoln Navigator SUV, according to a review by D.C. Council member Tommy Wells that was released Monday. (Washington Times)

Volunteers fight to preserve Woodlawn Cemetery Part of local black history: “When it opened in 1895, Woodlawn Cemetery and Perpetual Care Association served a who’s who of black Washington: Pastors, doctors, members of Congress like John Mercer Langston, great uncle of the poet Langston Hughes, or the U.S. senator who was born a slave, Sen. Blanche Bruce.” (tbd.com)