AJAM Callback: What happened next to the people who populated our stories

When it comes to a story, everyone wants to know what happens next.

In 2014, Al Jazeera America brought you stories of individuals as varied as a Texas woman who became an activist to fight fracking in her town, an African-American CEO on a job hunt, a father looking for a job for his son with Downs Syndrome.

But what happened next? Welcome to our inaugural Al Jazeera America Callback, in which we check back in with the people who populated our coverage in 2014. Many of them were waiting: for answers, for changes, for a job or a home. Read on and discover the next chapter in some of their stories.

Rocking the symphony

In "Rocking the symphony," we explored why there are still so few African-Americans in the classical music world, profiling cellist Sterling Elliott, winner of the 2014 junior division at the Sphinx Competition, the nation's pre-eminent contest for black and Latino string players.

Since taking the prize, Elliott said, "I've had one, maybe two concerts per month" with symphonies across the U.S. He participated in a master class with Yo Yo Ma and, with the recommendation of a Sphinx competition judge, was admitted into the Perlman Music Program, a renowned summer academy named after the renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman.

Sterling’s mother, Dannielle Weems Elliott, a violinist and music teacher, launched her own summer workshop for ambitious string players in southeast Virginia — with staffing help from Sterling and his two college-age siblings, both accomplished violinists. Recently, as a result of the string of cases of white police officers killing unarmed African-American men, Weems had to counsel her son on what to do if he was ever stopped by the police.

“I said to him, ‘Sterling, if you're ever stopped by the police, completely do whatever they tell you to do,’” she recalled. “Because sometimes, for African-American boys, justice is not stacked in your favor."

A home for every homeless vet

Ivan Bennett, the 85-year-old Korean War veteran who lived on the streets of Los Angeles for more than two decades until last February, when the Los Angeles Veterans Affairs succeeded in getting him in an apartment, died in July. Bennett was one of the estimated more than 57,000 homeless U.S. veterans that Barack Obama’s administration vowed to get off the streets by 2015. The VA reported that Bennett, who had been overwhelmed with emotion when furniture was delivered to his new residence, did not die homeless. He remained in his apartment until his death in a Los Angeles County Hospital. The VA did not disclose the cause of death and Bennett’s relatives could not be reached. Bennett had not seen his 45-year-old son for 40 years.

When fracking comes to town

In April, Maile Bush of Denton, Texas, was living with her family a mere 500 feet away from two fracking wells. The activity and her suspicion it was affecting her family’s health turned Bush into a fracktivist — a role she had never imagined for herself. In November, the work paid off; Denton voted to ban fracking within the city limits.

“It was quite the battle,” Bush said.

Bush called getting the citizen signatures for the ballot initiative “the easy part.” After the measure was approved, “industry came to town big time.” They launched a counteroffensive on TV, social media and radio to warn Denton’s residents of the downsides of banning fracking. After the initiative to ban fracking passed, the city was immediately sued by the Texas Oil and Gas Association and the Texas General Land Office. “We got to celebrate for all of 12 hours and the lawsuits hit the next morning,” Bush said.

Although the ban went into effect on Dec. 2, it doesn’t affect the wells that are already there. The wells close to Bush’s house are still in place, and now there is also a compressor station 750 feet away. Bush herself has undergone surgery for a sinus infection she’s had since July, and her son Kaden has constant nosebleeds — ailments Bush believes are caused by fracking. In 2015 she plans to continue her activism.

“People in Denton are still very involved in this fight,” Bush said. “We wanna see this to the end.”

Portrait of Down syndrome

Jamie Bérubé is bright, gregarious and effervescent. He also has Down syndrome. In May his father, Michael Bérubé told the story of his 22-year-old son and his struggle to find employment. Jamie Bérubé loves making lists and has a brain adept at cataloguing. There had to be a job out there somewhere.

“The piece got a lot of attention,” Michael Bérubé said a few months after it ran. He received messages from as far away as Australia. The story was reprinted in the Penn State alumni magazine, where it caught the attention of an editor from the Penn State Press.

The editor was so struck by the story that he offered Jamie Bérubé a job in cataloguing, information retrieval and tracking inventory and sales. Now he works there for four hours on Friday mornings. He does well at his new job, and his father said he hopes the work will continue — maybe even with an added shift on Wednesdays.

“He is happy to go to work,” Michael Bérubé said, “the first day, he wanted to wear a suit.” He told his son that a suit may be a little too much, and they settled for a nice button-up shirt. “He went business casual.” 

Battling heroin addiction

In the early days of summer, a two-part series on opioid addiction chronicled what many people say is an epidemic of heroin and prescription drug abuse. It profiled active and recovering users, harm-reduction advocates and policymakers in Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, California and New York, and charted efforts to legalize naloxone, a medicine that can prevent fatal overdose.

Jason Merrick, a drug counselor and former user, has continued to lead outreach efforts in northern Kentucky. In June it was still unclear whether community-based advocates like Merrick, not just physicians, could give nasal-naloxone kits to users and family members in the state. Since then, Merrick said, he has worked with the medical licensure board to obtain a standing order permitting lay distribution — over 200 kits so far.

“Two years ago, people wouldn't even listen [to us talk] about naloxone. Now I get people from all over the state saying, ‘Hey, can you come here?’” he said. “I’m hoping that the same will apply to other, more stigmatized aspects, like needle exchange,” a proven harm-reduction method still prohibited in Kentucky. For now, the rising price of naloxone has Merrick worried, saying that Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, a naloxone manufactureer, has “priced us out of the game.”

“It took our kits from $55 to $120,” he said. “It’s impossible for us to continue at this rate.”

Detroit’s hair wars

Detroit is neither ruin porn nor Motown graveyard; it’s the hair capital of the world. A June story “From carburetors to curling irons,” profiled Ali Du’Shua and other black autoworkers-turned-hairstylists struggling to make art and a living. Just after the piece was published, Du’Shua had to close his primary salon and now co-manages and rents a booth at another location, still on 6 Mile Road.

He works about 50 hours per week and will soon add 30 more, at a new salon run by a friend in neighboring Southfield.

“The suburbs is where people got the business and jobs,” Du’Shua said, adding that he can charge higher prices outside city limits. “Detroit is still the hair capital, but salons are giving cut-rate deals. My skills are impeccable. I’ve earned more. I deserve more.”

Du’Shua will soon begin preparations for Hair Wars 2015, themed color. According to David “Hump the Grinder” Humphries, the DJ and impresario of the annual hair entertainment event, Detroit's fantasy-hair stars “are getting old, so our thing is getting a new generation up, teaching these hairstylists how to color properly.”

Since the Al Jazeera story ran, Humphries has expanded his Internet hair show and said, “I’m getting interest from Berlin about bringing the show there, letting people see the history of what we've been doing in Detroit for so many years.”

The family left behind by war

After her Afghanistan veteran ex-husband Staff Sgt. Lonnie Al Watts died as a result of alcoholism fueled by severe post-traumatic stress disorder, LaTonya Johnson’s already complicated life got even more challenging. Taking care of five children and working full-time, Johnson’s spirit of survival touched readers in the July story “The family left behind.”

One of those readers recognized Johnson from the photos and reached out to her. The woman said that she was dating a man who had shown her the story as a way to make her aware of his troubles, saying that Johnson’s ex-husband sounded like him. “It made me feel like I had helped someone,” Johnson said.

On a recent December afternoon, Johnson picked up the phone as she drove home to pack. That evening, she headed out to Albuquerque and then to Texas in order to participate in Snowball Express, an annual event for military families who have lost service members. She traveled with Ashley and Landon, the children Watts and Johnson had together.

Johnson works at the sheriff’s office and, because the sheriff is an elected official, Johnson will be out of work at the end of the year. She said she wants to use the opportunity to take a break and see if she can get some counseling for her children, who are still reeling from losing their father.

For black men, a permanent recession

In early October, “For black men, a permanent recession” addressed the specific struggles black men are faced with in the job market. We followed five job seekers looking for employment in a market that is stacked against them. One of them was Keith Wyche, a 54-year-old with a string of executive positions at Fortune 500 companies. Following a management shakeup, Wyche was laid off in March from his position as president of Acme Markets and found himself unemployed for the first time in more than 30 years.  

Wyche said in December that although he has yet to land a job, there have been promising leads in the last two months. He said he felt encouraged by several recent interviews for senior executive positions. All of those positions would require him to relocate to a different part of the country from his home in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

“I have to go where the work is,” said Wyche, who called himself a “corporate athlete” — someone who’s willing to move flexibly in the corporate sector the way athletes move between teams.

Interview processes on the executive level can take months, he said. Despite the impending holiday season delaying decisions, he remained optimistic. “My hope is to land a meaningful role in 2015 where I can make a difference.”

Staff writers Haya El Nasser and E. Tammy Kim contributed to this story.