Jonathan Pitts on Muck Rack

Jonathan Pitts

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Baltimore
As seen in: Baltimore Sun, MSN, Yahoo Life, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, New York Daily News, Yahoo Finance, Post Tribune, SFGate, The Toronto Star, U.S. News and World Report and
Covers:  All things poignant and peculiar, often in the realms of religion, race, social justice, science, the arts and little-known facets of history.
Doesn't Cover: I put in my time on zoning and easement issues. Those are about the only topics off my list!
Enterprise and religion reporter for The Baltimore Sun, chronicler of sports, music, social justice, all things poignant and peculiar. Dad, husband, Blues fan.
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Records prove Johns Hopkins University founder owned slaves, shattering belief he was a staunch a...

Records prove Johns Hopkins University founder owned slaves, shattering belief he was a staunch a...

Baltimore Sun — The narrative has stood as an unquestioned landmark of Baltimore history for at least nine decades: Johns Hopkins, the businessman who founded the university and hospital that bear his name, was an abolitionist, a civic leader who actively opposed slavery and racism in all its forms. Now a different picture has emerged.
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Eleven years ago, a couple took over a floundering zoo in Cecil County. Now it's a regional desti...

Eleven years ago, a couple took over a floundering zoo in Cecil County. Now it's a regional desti...

Baltimore Sun — RISING SUN - The sunlight bore down over northeastern Maryland, and the humidity was close to 90%, but the heat did nothing to hinder what's become a typical day at the Plumpton Park Zoo. (Article is behind the Baltimore Sun's Premium Content paywall; see PDF for full story.)
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In slavery, her family was owned by his. Now they attend a Baltimore church seeking to atone for ...

In slavery, her family was owned by his. Now they attend a Baltimore church seeking to atone for ...

Baltimore Sun — The Rev. Natalie Conway's tenure as the new deacon of Memorial Episcopal Church in Baltimore's Bolton Hill was by all accounts going well last year when she received news that sparked a personal crisis and sent shock waves through the congregation.
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Headlines told of a baby found in 1934 near Baltimore's Penn Station. New DNA tests offer an answ...

Headlines told of a baby found in 1934 near Baltimore's Penn Station. New DNA tests offer an answ...

Baltimore Sun — In the waning days of the Great Depression, a woman told Baltimore Police she'd found a baby in the back seat of her car. The mystery made the front page of The Evening Sun. Eighty-seven years later, the truth has finally come out.
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You're Missin' a Great Game

You're Missin' a Great Game

Book Stew — This memoir, co-written with Whitey Herzog, was ranked in February 2022 by Esquire magazine as one of "The 100 Best Baseball Books Ever Written." (See PDF for New York Times review and more.)
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Greenmount Ave. barber has held court in same shop for 60 years

Greenmount Ave. barber has held court in same shop for 60 years

Baltimore Sun — Four of the rowhouses in the 2000 block of Greenmount Avenue are boarded shut. A disheveled man nurses a bottle on a set of front steps ... But stop in at No. 2003, where a tiny red, white and blue pole still spirals, and meet a man who has maintained an oasis of welcome since 1955.
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Parishioners push expedited sainthood for six African American Catholics

Parishioners push expedited sainthood for six African American Catholics

Baltimore Sun — Critics say the Roman Catholic church has long failed to accommodate the interests of Black parishioners, and that has included overlooking all African American sainthood candidates. A group of Baltimore Catholics is seeking to change that. (Article is behind Premium Content paywall; see PDF for full story.)
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The U.S. government hushed up the sinking of a transport ship during WWII. A Baltimore sergeant's...

The U.S. government hushed up the sinking of a transport ship during WWII. A Baltimore sergeant's...

Baltimore Sun — Denise Sharp is a go-to historian for her extended family, and her knowledge of the Sharp and Doerer clans of greater Baltimore is encyclopedic. But one question lingered in her mind for years. (Article is behind Premium Content paywall; see PDF.)
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Ousted Empowerment Temple pastor faced business lawsuit, 'pattern of complaints' for firm before ...

Ousted Empowerment Temple pastor faced business lawsuit, 'pattern of complaints' for firm before ...

Baltimore Sun — Ousted Empowerment Temple pastor George Barnes II and his wife faced serious problems in their business lives both before and after he was hired to lead the Baltimore megachurch, according to public records and the Better Business Bureau. ( Article is behind the Sun's Premium Content paywall; see PDF for full story.)
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Bringing a dark chapter to light: Maryland confronts its lynching legacy

Bringing a dark chapter to light: Maryland confronts its lynching legacy

Baltimore Sun — A bright moon hovered above Westminster, Md., that evening in June 1885, its "still rays lighting up every nook and corner," The Sun reported at the time, when the sounds of "a cavalcade of horses" broke the silence. Dozens of riders, their faces masked, rode toward the downtown jail.
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'Muslim Americans shouldn't have to feel this way': on the 20th anniversary of 9/11

'Muslim Americans shouldn't have to feel this way': on the 20th anniversary of 9/11

Baltimore Sun — With a new year about to start at his children's Sunday school, Mansoor Shams volunteered to handle logistics for the youth group's semiannual field trip. (Article is behind Premium Content paywall; see PDF for full story.)
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A symbol of hope: Statue of Mary made whole again as damaged hands are replaced outside North Bal...

A symbol of hope: Statue of Mary made whole again as damaged hands are replaced outside North Bal...

Baltimore Sun — The sculptor came with his latest works, the product of months of labor. The mason arrived with cement drills, architectural glue, and an eye for smoothness and form. They were to replace the hands of a statue of the Virgin Mary that has stood watch at the church since 1921. Vandals knocked off the original hands years ago.
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Confederate statues stood as Baltimore landmarks. Now, their pedestals stand ready to send a ne...

Confederate statues stood as Baltimore landmarks. Now, their pedestals stand ready to send a ne...

Baltimore Sun — For a hundred years, the statue of a grieving mother gazed down from a pedestal in a park near Johns Hopkins University, her Confederate soldier son dying nobly in her arms. (It's) gone now, hauled away with the city’s other Confederate statues in 2017. But visitors to tiny Bishop Square Park can now see an African American civil rights legend in its place. (Article is behind Premium Content paywall; see PDF for full story.)
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The Baltimore Museum of Art made a bold decision to sell three important paintings. The blowback ...

The Baltimore Museum of Art made a bold decision to sell three important paintings. The blowback ...

Baltimore Sun — When Baltimore’s oldest art museum decided to sell three of its most prominent paintings, including a major work by pop-art icon Andy Warhol, to raise millions of dollars toward its avowed goal of promoting diversity, the reaction was swift and mostly fierce. More than 150 prominent supporters ... signed a letter to the Maryland attorney general calling for a halt to the sale. (Article is behind Premium Content paywall; see PDF for full story.)
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Faithful take 'Rush Hour to Calvary' for Good Friday service

Faithful take 'Rush Hour to Calvary' for Good Friday service

Baltimore Sun — Bishop Millicent Hunter began somberly, reading from the Scriptures about Jesus' agony on the cross. She raised her voice while addressing the endless temptation to sin. By the time her sermon peaked, she was shouting into her microphone, bringing a well-dressed crowd of 1,200 to its feet.
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In Ellicott City, a church of resurrection

In Ellicott City, a church of resurrection

Baltimore Sun — If anyone should know resurrection, it's Rev. Tom Slawson and his flock at St. Peter's Episcopal Church. Five years ago, it was the site of a double shooting; now, as Easter approaches, it has become one of the most successful parishes in the Maryland diocese.
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Grayson Gilbert's divine strength

Grayson Gilbert's divine strength

Baltimore Sun — A young man battling rare terminal afflictions finds hope -- and a seemingly miraculous medical recovery -- through a team of physicians and a towering statue of Jesus at Johns Hopkins hospital.
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ALIVE WITH THE DEAD

ALIVE WITH THE DEAD

Baltimore Sun — A man whose only son died in a car crash finds hope and solace in the in the strange world the young man used to live in and love: the music and hippie culture of the Grateful Dead.
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Half a century after rioting ravaged Cambridge, town seeks to embrace history - so as to transcen...

Half a century after rioting ravaged Cambridge, town seeks to embrace history - so as to transcen...

Baltimore Sun — Fifty years on, longtime residents of Cambridge are still sifting through their emotions about what took place on the night of July 24, 1967. Some remain angry about the conditions that caused the unrest. Some want to leave it in the past. Others say it should be remembered
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Ravens' O.J. Brigance brings a different power to second Super Bowl journey

Ravens' O.J. Brigance brings a different power to second Super Bowl journey

Baltimore Sun — He was a mighty presence when the Ravens won Super Bowl XXXV, a warrior who busted a wedge to make the first tackle that day and went on to make four more. Now his battle against Lou Gehrig's disease shows another championship contending Ravens squad a different kind of power.
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Black, gay and Christian, Marylanders struggle with conflicts

Black, gay and Christian, Marylanders struggle with conflicts

Baltimore Sun — While growing up in an African-American Baptist church, Harris Thomas was taught homosexuality is an "abomination in the eyes of God." As a young minister, he disparaged the gay lifestyle even while secretly pursuing it. Today he heads a Baltimore church that serves gay Christians of color "right where they are."
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On Maryland's Eastern Shore, a county school superintendent is under fire for supporting Black Li...

On Maryland's Eastern Shore, a county school superintendent is under fire for supporting Black Li...

Baltimore Sun — An email message that Andrea Kane, the superintendent of schools in Queen Anne's County, sent to parents at the end of the 2019-2020 school year started out unremarkably, listing achievements for the year and the dates of coming events. Then it pivoted into less familiar terrain, at least on Maryland's largely conservative Eastern Shore.
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Passover accentuates themes of deliverance for Baltimore's Jews of color

Passover accentuates themes of deliverance for Baltimore's Jews of color

Baltimore Sun — KeSean Johnson's involvement with religion has been a long, sometimes troublesome journey. Raised in a Christian home, he came to question the integrity of that faith. He flirted with Islam and spent years with a Black separatist sect. But when Johnson, an African American filmmaker and U.S.
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Years later, three watch as their abuser is sentenced to prison

Years later, three watch as their abuser is sentenced to prison

Baltimore Sun — Three men who were sexually abused by a church youth-ministry leader years ago experienced a measure of justice Wednesday as they confronted their abuser in court, read emotion-charged statements about how his crimes have damaged their lives, and heard a judge sentence Raymond Fernandez to 16 years in prison.
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