BOSTON/Roxbury – Over 400 Roxbury residents, activists, students, #OccupyBoston activists and supporters from around Boston assembled at Dudley Square for the first Community Speak Out/Rally on Friday. Jamarhl Crawford, editor of The Blackstonian, and Cornell Mills organized the Speak Out - which featured speakers ranging from Denise Williams, whose two nephews were murdered while returning from a family barbecue on July 4, 2011, to community organizer, educator and longtime political activist Mel King. The Speak Out was followed by a National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality on Saturday, October 22nd. The next Speak Out is slated to be held next Friday, October 28th.

BOSTON/Roxbury - Over 50 Roxbury Community College students and community supporters held a protest against police brutality on Thursday in response to the beating of a 16 year old teenager by several Boston police officers on their campus on October 22nd. According to the police, the teen had escaped from a nearby junvenile detention facility and was resisting arrest. It is not yet known how the police knew the teen was on the RCC campus. The incident was captured on video by an RCC student and released on numerous social networks - resulting in immediate community outrage and national media attention.

BOSTON/Roxbury - On October 22nd, a video surfaced showing 12 police officers kicking and punching a presumably 16-year-old African American male on the Roxbury Community College campus in Boston, MA. Community members respond with outrage and organizing protests calling for reform and accountability. Press Pass TV was on the scene at one of the first protest rallies in response to the incident.

BOSTON/Roxbury - Incumbent District 7 City Councilor Chuck Turner faced off with challenger Carlos "Tony" Henriquez - the president of the board of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative - at a debate in front of an audience of over 80 community members at Hibernian Hall in Dudley Square on Wednesday. The event was organized by a RoxVote, a "coalition of community organizations that care about civic participation in Roxbury" which includes Madison Park Development Corporation, DSNI, Nuestra Communidad Community Development Corporation, the Orchard Gardens and Orchard Commons Residents Association, and a number of other groups.

BOSTON/Roxbury - Over 80 people rallied on Cobden and Cardington Sts. on the Roxbury side of Egleston Square Sunday to demand that giant banks that own several properties in the neighborhood stop all post-foreclosure evictions immediately and sell the properties to residents that live there or to a non-profit willing and able to set up a resident's coop. The event was organized by the housing advocacy non-profit City Life/Vida Urbana and the Bank Tenants Association - an organization of residents in foreclosed properties.

Advocates say that they are pursuing a block-wide strategy in the neighborhood to demand that all banks that own property there - including Deutsche, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, HSBC, Guaranty, Aurora and US Bank - sell all their holdings to local residents. Currently they are working on a deal with Wells Fargo and expect other banks to follow suit. If successful, they hope to pursue a similar strategy block by block in other affected Boston neighborhoods.

BOSTON/Roxbury - In this video, Press Pass TV reports on a blind Roxbury mother's battle for fair and safe housing. After being repeatedly robbed, the Boston Police allegedly started ignoring her calls - even as her situation worsened. It took a City Councilor and his staff to help change her life around.

Press Pass TV is a Boston-based youth-adult partnership non-profit whose mission is to produce socially responsible video journalism which promotes a more diverse media, empowers communities, and increases civic engagement.

BOSTON/Roxbury - Ten of the fifteen candidates running for At-Large City Council seats this fall participated in a public forum sponsored by Open Media Boston this past Wednesday at Roxbury Community College. The preliminary election – to be held across Boston on Tuesday, September 22nd – will narrow the field to eight candidates. Four At-Large seats are up for grabs - and two incumbents are in the race. So, at least two new candidates will be elected to office after the final election in November.

BOSTON/Roxbury – Wanda Castle does just about everything the owner of a Boston triple-decker would do to maintain her property, including basic repairs and paying for water and electricity in common areas of the building.

And if this were a normal situation, Ms. Castle – who has lived in this building on the Roxbury/Jamaica Plain border as a tenant for two and a half years - would be paying a regular, stable, rent to live there.

But the situation is anything but normal. Wanda Castle, her fourteen year old daughter, and her neighbor Inell Mendez, are living in limbo as the banks and mortgage service companies that own the three separate condo units of this triple-decker figure out what to do with these properties sitting on the edge of foreclosure; known in banking parlance as “non-performing assets.”

BOSTON/Roxbury - It was awkward at times; and messy. But for about two hours this past Thursday night, Governor Deval Patrick did his best to field questions and requests for help from local residents at a town hall meeting held in the basketball gymnasium at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center in Roxbury.

Hundreds of people turned out to the Athletic Center to express frustration with state budget cuts, criticize the slow pace of neighborhood transportation improvements, and offer advice on a variety of policy issues.

BOSTON/Roxbury - Older residents of Boston and other cities, led by advocates from the Mass Senior Action Council demonstrated on Thursday against cuts in funding for state programs such as Prescription Advantage. About forty people gathered at the intersections of Blue Hill and Geneva Avenues and Warren Street in Grove Hall.

Shaking pill bottles and wearing plastic buttocks sticking out from underneath hospital gowns, several activists chanted “keep me covered” while supporting hospital nurses whose ranks, they say, have been thinned drastically by budget cuts.