4th Annual Lynching in Maryland Conference

The Maryland Lynching Memorial Project is holding our 4th annual "Lynching in Maryland" conference on Saturday, November 6, 2021 from 9.30a to 1.00p. Once again this year, the conference will be held virtually due to the ongoing public health emergency.

As in years past, the program will include a variety of presentations, panel discussions and films that consider the history of racial terror lynching in Maryland, its lasting effects and efforts around the state to confront the truth so that healing and reconciliation might be achieved..

The program will include:

• JUST ADDED: Bryan Stevenson's Message to Maryland - Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson, is recording a special message to the citizens of Maryland regarding the upcoming public hearings of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That message will be released at the beginning of the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project's 4th Annual "Lynching in Maryland" Conference on Saturday, November 6.
• JUST ADDED: "Printing Hate" - This month, the University of Maryland's Howard Center for Investigative Journalism announced it had launched "Printing Hate", a remarkable website that demonstrates and documents the historic role of the white press in encouraging and inciting racial terror. The project is the brainchild of UMD Associate Professor and Washington Post writer DeNeen L. Brown, known for her reporting on the 1921Tulsa Race Massacre and its aftermath. Ms. Brown will discuss this new venture that features the work of journalism students at the UMD Merrill College and a number of HBCUs.
  
• JUST ADDED: Tuskegee Airman Lynched - A Baltimore-born Tuskegee airman. Lt. Walter Manning, overcame numerous obstacles to earn his wings and fly for his country in World War 2. In the waning days of the war, Manning's P-51 was shot down and he was taken prisoner. Two days later, he was lynched by a Nazi-led mob. Learn this sad and shocking story and hear from members of the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis (TN) and one of Manning's fellow Tuskegee airmen who flew alongside him on that doomed mission.
• JUST ADDED: Jason Green - Maryland based attorney, entrepreneur and community organizer, Jason Green is currently chair of the Montgomery County Commission on Remembrance and Reconciliation, charged with helping the community come together to better understand its history of racial terror. Green is also the director of the award winning documentary "Finding Fellowship" which explores how three racially segregated churches merged in 1968 in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The film has spurred a $1 Million campaign to preserve an African American heritage site in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
  
• JUST ADDED: "Bodies of Information" - Executive Director of the Lewis Museum, Terri Freeman, takes us on a guided, personal tour of the Museum's exhibit, "Bodies of Information": "Through this exhibit we can examine how people – from researchers, educators, and historians to students and family genealogists – use documents to confront the complicated role that slavery played in American life. By looking closely at the newspapers, images, ads, and bills of sale from the period, we see how slavery existed in every part of life in the United States."
  
• "The Silent Shore: The Lynching of Matthew Williams and the Politics of Racism in the Free State" - Charles Chavis, Ph.D. is Vice Chair of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission (MLTRC), a member of the MLMP Board of Directors and the author of a soon-to-be-published book on the 1931 lynching of Matthew Williams. Dr. Chavis will tell the incredible story of the remarkable revelations uncovered by his ground-breaking research into the gruesome crime. He will also discuss both the immediate and long-term effects of Wiliams' lynching on the Salisbury's historic Black community, which continues to suffer the fallout of a hate crime from 90 years ago.
• Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission (MLTRC) - The law that created the MLTRC mandates public hearings around the state in communities where racial terror lynching occurred. This is arguably the most important feature of the law. Those hearings have just begun and we have assembled a special panel to assess how well the law is working and how community coalitions and individuals can contribute to the success of the MLTRC. The panel will include:
  • Del. Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D) District 21 (Anne Arundel and Prince George's Counties), the primary sponsor of the bill that created the MLTRC
  • Nick Creary, Ph.D., a member of the Commission, his research helped form the factual basis for the legislation which he helped write
  • Clory Jackson - leader of the Allegany County Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Committee which successfully held the first MLTRC hearing
  • Jack Del Nunzio - a leader of the Carroll County Coalition of MLMP and project coordinator of the Maryland Lynching Oral History Initiative
• A Second Reckoning - John Snowden was a Black man accused of murdering a pregnant white woman in Annapolis in 1917. He was convicted by an all-white jury based on circumstantial evidence and executed by hanging in February 1919. It was the last "legal" lynching in Annapolis. Snowden's trial was tainted by judicial misconduct and overt racism. He steadfastly maintained his innocence. There was enough doubt about the legitimacy of the proceedings that Snowden was issued a posthumous pardon in 2001 by Governor Parris Glendenning. The Snowden case is the subject of a new book, A Second Reckoning, by historian/author Scott Seligman, whose previous books include The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902 and The Third Degree: The Triple Murder That Shook Washington and Changed American Criminal Justice. Seligman will discuss the Snowden case and the need to address injustices of the past if racial reconciliation is to be realized.
• Shine the Light of Truth! - Ida B. Wells Barnett, the iconic anti-lynching crusader who was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize last year, is portrayed by award-winning actress Debra Mims in a preview of her upcoming one-woman show, Shine the Light of Truth! In 2020 the Pulitzer Committee cited Ms. Barnett "for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching." Ms. Mims' play imagines the journalist returning to accept her Pulitzer.
• JUST ADDED: EJI Racial Justice Essay Contest - EJI representatives will be on hand to announce a racial justice essay contest open to Baltimore City public high school students. EJI will award prizes totaling at least $5,000 to the winners. The contest is sponsored by the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project and EJI.
  
  

The response to our previous three conferences has been overwhelming. (Click to read the Washington Post article about our first conference.) Don't miss your chance to be a part of this important and powerful symposium.

We urge everyone to REGISTER NOW!