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FEATURE STORIES
The Morgan Global Journalism Review( MGJR) is an online quarterly published by the School of Global Journalism & Communication at Morgan State University. MGJR’ s mission is to promote journalistic excellence and provide reporting and analysis of media and communications trends, issues and events from an international perspective.
PUBLISHER Jackie Jones
EDITOR DeWayne Wickham
DEPUTY EDITOR Osaretin Iyare
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Diane Harris John Guess Jr. Joe Davidson Michael H. Cottman Edward Robinson Christopher Potts
COPY EDITOR Osaretin Iyare
DESIGNER Sherry Poole Clark
TECHNICAL SUPPORT Ivery Johnson
WEBMASTER Henry McEachnie
CONTACT US: Morgan Global Journalism Review Email: jacqueline. jones @ morgan. edu
Morgan State University Communication Center 363 Baltimore, MD 21251 Phone:( 443) 885-3502
10 INSIDE THE HOUSE THAT HOPE BUILT Take a floor-by-floor journey through the $ 850 million Obama Presidential Center, where a little girl’ s question about suffrage, a replica Resolute Desk and memorabilia turn history from something distant into something personal.
16 IN THE SHADOW OF OBAMA’ S TOWER The people of Jackson Park watched the Obama Center rise from their windows with pride, hope and questions. These are the streets, people and places that made a president.
22 AFRICA RISING IN THE BEAUTIFUL GAME Africa shined at the 2026 World Cup tournament with nine of ten soccer teams reaching the knockout rounds and tiny Cabo Verde nearly toppling soccer giant Argentina.
26 RETURN TO THE HENRIETTA MARIE Thirty-three years after helping place the first underwater monument on a slave shipwreck, Michael H. Cottman returns to the Henrietta Marie— 25 feet beneath the Gulf— to give the first underwater interview about the historic transatlantic slave trade vessel.
28 THE NABJ CONVENTION’ S GOLDEN YEARS From poolside pizza to Donald Trump, the NABJ conventions have seen it all. Cofounder Joe Davidson, who has attended every convention in its history traces a half-century of sparks, socializing and journalism.
SPECIAL SECTIONS
4 DEAN’ S CORNER: Jackie Jones is the Dean of the School of Global Journalism and Communication
8 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR DeWayne Wickham is the Dean Emeritus, and Director Center for New Media and Strategic Initiatives, School of Global Journalism and Communication
36 PAGES FROM THE ARCHIVE The Other 13th Amendment Four years before the amendment that abolished slavery, Congress passed another 13th Amendment— one that- if it had been ratified- would have made human bondage a permanent part of the Constitution, with Abraham Lincoln’ s blessing
41 TRANSITIONS Lindsey Graham: Who Gets to Write His Obituary As America eulogizes Lindsey Graham, John Guess Jr. asks why Black Americans’ experience of the senator is relegated to the footnotes— and argues that whoever writes the obituary holds the power to construct national memory
42 BOOKSMART Freedom Lost, Freedom Won, a personal history of America Diane Harris reviews Eugene Robinson’ s sweeping personal history that follows the Washington Post columnist’ s family from his great-great-grandfather’ s self-purchased freedom in Charleston to the election of the first Black president
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