real stories. real people.



WHAT I DO: Write about race, ethnicity, and other topics for The Associated Press.

WHAT I DON'T DO: Opinions. I'm a reporter, not a columnist. My job is to illuminate the thoughts and lives of other people.

BUT: Of course I do have opinions, which inevitably affect what I write.

SO: I constantly seek out perspectives different than my own. 

I'M ALSO A: Novelist. Magazine founder. Lifelong Baha'i. 


   

Block Where Women Found
a Friendly but Cautious Place

By JESSE WASHINGTON
AP National Writer
May 7, 2013

CLEVELAND (AP) -- The block where horror happened has many faces.

On one end, magnificent stained-glass windows rise two stories up a handsome brick church. At the other end, truck bays open into a bleak warehouse. In between are about 20 houses, some tidy, some with boards or broken glass instead of windows. Back yards melt into a block-long cemetery filled with long grass and crooked tombstones.

In the middle of the Seymour Avenue block stands the home where, authorities say, three young women who vanished a decade ago or more were held captive by a school bus driver and his two brothers.

What kind of place could hide such a terrible secret for so long? And how? On Tuesday, neighborhood residents described a compact world, friendly but cautious, where people keep their heads down and police don't always protect or serve. (read more)