Eight area residents, including Free Press photojournalist Regina H. Boone, were honored with 2019 Community Healer Awards on Aug. 21 as part of the Valuing Black Lives Global Summit held by the Community Healing Network at Virginia Union University. The honorees, from left, are Olufemi Shepsu, social worker and co-founder of the Abusa-Pa Black Family Institute; Virginia Com- monwealth University professor Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, founder of the Conciliation Project, a nonprofit social justice theater company; Ms. Boone; freelance writer and author Samantha Willis; Samuel D. Veney III, community activist; Lynetta Thompson, founder of the Mary G. Brown Transitional Center and longtime NAACP official; and Albert Walker III, director of healthy communities at Bon Secours Health System. Community organizer Lillie Estes was honored posthumously. Also, Dr. Annelle B. Primmer, a Baltimore psychiatrist, received the 2019 President’s Award. She is chair and convener of the All Healers Mental Health Alliance. (photo by Ava Reaves)
