Howard County Author Battling Covid-19

Howard County resident David H. Barrett has tested positive for the Novel Corona Virus. Barrett has a longstanding history of community service. Most recently he retired in 2018 from the Howard County Public School system where he taught algebra for 12 years at the Homewood Center. After a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease in 2017, Barrett set out to write a trilogy of memoirs chronicling his Black Power advocacy with prominent Newark leaders before eventually settling in Howard County Maryland where he has built a career in leadership culminating in becoming the co-founder of the Alpha Achievers, an academic program that provides mentorship and leadership training for high school African American males who maintain a GPA of 3.0 and above.

His Howard County community service over the past five decades includes past chairman of the board of the Alpha Foundation of Howard County, Inc., past chairman of the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society, past president of the Howard County Library System a former director of the Horizon Foundation and past president of the Kappa Phi Lambda Chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.

The first in the memoir trilogy was "A Newark Childhood", which was released in August of 2019. His Covid-19 diagnosis comes as he is in the process of completing the second memoir installment entitled "Newark Talasimu", which covers his seven years as a young activist working along with the 1960s and 1970s Black Power legends including Amiri Baraka, Stokely Carmichael (KwameToure), and others.

Donations can be made to a Go Fund Me account to support Barrett in his fight against Covid-19 and the completion of the book series. He is currently in-home quarantine and being cared for by his wife, Saundra Barrett.