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The Official Newsletter of The University of Maryland's Black Student Newspaper
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Dec.11, 2025 | Volume 1 | Issue 2
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Welcome to the second volume of The AfterShock. We hope you enjoyed our first edition last week. This week, we have ATM skimming, a rising problem in Prince George's County, Nyumburu's annual Kwanzaa celebration and a movie review of Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another." This will be our last newsletter for the fall 2025 semester, so we hope all of our readers have a fun and relaxing winter break!
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Thank you for reading and we'll see you next semester!
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-Nina Wilson, 2025-2026 Editor-in-Chief
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The University of Maryland’s Nyumburu Cultural Center, which funds The Black Explosion, hosted its annual Pre-Kwanzaa Celebration and Dinner on Dec. 3, reinforcing the holiday’s themes of Black cultural pride and community.
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The Nyumburu multipurpose room contained tables draped in red, black and green, a Christmas tree and presents arranged on one side of the stage and African drums arranged carefully on the other. As guests trickled in and the crowd grew the Nyumburu Jazz Club began tuning up.
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Interim Director Psyche Williams-Forson opened the program by informing the audience of Kwanzaa’s origins.
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Created in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, the holiday centers around seven principles known as the Nguzo Saba. Williams-Forson encouraged students to carry these values — unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith — through the remainder of the semester. The holiday is celebrated from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1 every year.
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🔗: Read more here
✍️, 📸: Kera Matthews
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Approximately 45 skimming devices, gadgets that steal credit and debit card information, have been recovered across Prince George's County this year, according to an Oct. 15 police report.
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The FBI defines ATM skimming as the placement of an electronic device that steals information from a bank card’s magnetic strip. This information includes the cardholder’s name and account number, as well as the card’s expiration date and verification code.
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🔗: Read more here
✍️, 📸: Josephine Andoh
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“One Battle After Another,” Anderson’s latest creation, stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro and Chase Infiniti. Loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Vineland,” the film follows DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson, a stoned, former revolutionary who embarks on a mission to rescue his kidnapped daughter from a former adversary.
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🔗: Read more here
✍️: Malachi Anderson
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Today in Black Explosion History
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Ten years ago, Black Explosion staff reported on the unveiling of the Fredrick Douglass memorial statue on Nov. 18, 2015, in the December 2015-January 2026 issue.
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According to the University of Maryland, the bronze memorial is 7.5 feet tall and is in honor of the former slave, who was an abolitionist, suffragist, journalist and scholar.
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Douglass was born in 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. He was sent as a slave to a family in Baltimore, where he secretly learned how to read and write. He escaped to New York in 1836 and joined the abolition movement.
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He died in 1895 after a life filled with advocating for liberty and equality for all people.
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The Fredrick Douglass Memorial statue on Hornbake Plaza, nearly 8 years after its original unveiling on Nov.17, 2023 (Razak Diallo/The Black Explosion).
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That's all for this week. See you next semester!
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