Photography cannot only capture an image but also a sound. Public Square Amplified's photojournalist, Brian Branch-Price, displays his adeptness in depicting gospel music through his signature black-and-white medium. Through his photos, he gives us a glimpse of the rhythms that tie family to music and God.

Following the devastating impacts of the recent earthquakes hitting both Syria and Turkey, one woman saw an opportunity to lend a hand in a way that is often overlooked. She did not donate food, clothes, or even money. Instead, Eiko La Boria, founder of The Flow Initiative, donated over 20,000 menstrual products to the people of Turkey and Syria.

Heavy rainfall, runoff, urban flooding, overbank flooding and drainage problems threaten several areas in Camden County, but the City of Camden—one of 37 municipalities in the county—has the greatest number of residents living in a floodplain. Like a peninsula, water surrounds the city, such as the Delaware River, Cooper River and Newton Creek. But residents aren't just taking in floodwater. There's raw sewage in the mix. As an overburdened Black and brown community with about 36% of residents living below the poverty level, residents, environmental specialists and community nonprofits say it's an environmental justice issue.

On Tuesday night, March 7, hundreds of citizens gathered to mourn and protest in outrage the killing of yet another Black man, 31-year-old, Najee Seabrooks, by two Paterson Police officers, while Seabrooks was experiencing a mental health crisis.

In provocative irony, Seabrooks worked as a high-risk violence interventionist with the Paterson Healing Collective to assist Paterson community members, mainly young people, experiencing a crisis.

New Jersey residents who utilize the SNAP program won’t be left in the lurch when federal SNAP emergency benefits end on February 28, as the state becomes the first to institute a minimum benefit allotment. Beginning March 1, all individuals and households participating in the program will receive no less than $95 a month to assist with the rising cost of groceries and fresh essentials.

Photo essays can be counter-narratives to affirm our shared humanity in racialized spaces designed to erase it. And Public Square Amplified's photojournalist, Brian Branch-Price, makes it look sublime. As always, his choice of the black-and-white medium delivers a beautiful portrait of a Black female rancher.

Tammy Harris comes from generations of harvesters. In the mid-twentieth century, her grandparents traversed the highways during the terror-filled Jim Crow era of racialized laws from New Jersey to Florida to harvest potatoes and other produce.

On a summer day in August, When Black Women Gather (WBWG), an international organization, took a cross-section of Black women from N.J. to learn how to shoot.

"It was a long-awaited adventure originally planned for Mother's Day, pre-pandemic,” said the founder of the organization, Helen Higgenbotham.

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Mark Kearney pulls weeds to make room for the eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, beans, squash and melons that will grow on the three-acre urban oasis he manages.

Kearney, who was formerly incarcerated, says he feels alchemy working the land on the Newark-based Hawthorne Avenue Farm.

Gone are the days of skimming social media for the next farmers’ market. Students at Stockton, in collaboration with the New Jersey Food Democracy Collaborative (NJFDC), have created a website and interactive map showing where the closest market is, and which ones accept SNAP cards. The site also lets farmers know how to become SNAP authorized.