2024 Maryland Lynching Memorial Project Annual "Lynching in Maryland" Conference

The MD Lynching Memorial Project (MLMP) will hold its 7th Annual “Lynching in Maryland” Conference on Saturday, November 2, 2024 from 9.30a to 4.00p at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture in Baltimore.

As in years past, the program will include a variety of exciting and thought-provoking 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 begin.

Once again this year we are offering both in-person and virtual attendance. Those attending in person will be provided with morning refreshments and a boxed lunch. Additionally, those attending at the Lewis Museum will have the opportunity to visit the new permanent Lynching in Maryland exhibit created in collaboration with the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project. (See below for additional details.)

Program Segments

JUST ANNOUNCED!!

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
We are thrilled to announce that 2024 Tony Award-winning playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins will appear at the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project’s annual “Lynching in Maryland” conference.

Earlier this year, Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins’ play, “Appropriate”, won a 2024 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. The play received eight nominations and won three Tony Awards.

“Appropriate” tells the story of a reunion of the Lafayette family (a “vortex of dysfunction” according to The Guardian) at its decaying Arkansas plantation home. Three siblings, each with their own agendas, have gathered to clean out the house and divide the estate following the death of the family patriarch, a retired judge. However, while going through his belongings, the family discovers a scrapbook of photographs of lynchings and other gruesome artifacts of those murders. The discovery sets off an avalanche of emotion.

“Tensions arise in the play’s opening minutes and barely let up for a second, with decades worth of resentments and recriminations flaring up with white-hot intensity,” wrote critic Frank Schenk.

The Denver Post adds, “'Appropriate' asks audiences to understand the hatred, the anger and the pathologies that evolved as a result of the racist past."

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a Brooklyn-based playwright, producer, and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. He currently teaches at Yale University and serves as Vice President of the Dramatists Guild council and on the boards of Soho Rep, Park Avenue Armory, and the Dramatists Guild Foundation. Honors include a USA Artists fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, the MacArthur fellowship, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama, and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award.

My Father's Name
We are proud to announce that the conference will feature the Maryland premiere of the award-winning documentary, "My Father's Name."

This 20-minute film traces a woman's harrowing and life-altering realization that her father had taken part in one of the nation's most notorious acts of racial terror: the torture and brutal lynching of Roosevelt Townes and Robert McDaniels in Duck Hill, Mississippi.

On the morning of April 13, 1937, on the flimsiest of pretenses, Townes and McDaniels were arraigned for the murder of a white storekeeper. They were handcuffed together to be returned to jail but as the pair left the courthouse they were seized by a mob of about 100 men and taken to a secluded site in the woods about 6 miles away. There the two were tied to trees and sadistically tortured to death.

Their murders attracted national attention when photographs of the grotesque scene were published in Time and Life magazines.

“My Father’s Name” focuses on a child of one of the lynchers and how she reckons with the discovery of her father’s secret past. The man she worshiped and likened to Atticus Finch – kind, patient, loving – was party to the horrific murders of those men.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. called the film, “a gripping and essential exploration of race, accountability, and the far-reaching consequences of family secrets.” In addition to the screening, there will be a panel discussion following the film that will include:

• Susanna Styron, the film’s director, is an award-winning writer and director of both documentary and dramatic works for film and television
• Devontae Freeland, descendant of James Bowens who was lynched in Frederick in 1895
• Juliet Hinely, great-great-granddaughter of the man who led the mob that lynched 15-year-old Howard Cooper in Towson in 1885

The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Terry Anne Scott, author of the acclaimed "Lynching and Leisure: Race and the Transformation of Mob Violence in Texas," and an MLMP board member.

Historical Violence and Attitudes Towards Justice in Maryland
We are also honored to announce that Dr. Kelebogile Zvobgo, founder and director of the International Justice Lab at William & Mary, will be a featured speaker at the conference.

As highlighted in our June and July newsletters, Dr. Zvobgo is a co-author of a recently published study “Historical Violence and Public Attitudes Towards Justice: Evidence from the United States”. The purpose of the study, published in a recent edition of the International Journal of Transitional Justice, was to determine how knowledge of historical violence (racial terror lynchings) influences the attitudes of the state’s Black residents towards symbolic transitional justice measures (e.g., apologies, memorials and markers) compared to material remedies (e.g., reparations and community projects).

At the fall conference, Dr. Zvobgo will discuss the study, its implications for truth and reconciliation efforts in Maryland and elsewhere, and the direction this research may take in the future.

"Erased Lynching"
We are excited to welcome renowned multidisciplinary artist, Ken Gonzales-Day, who will also be appearing at the conference.

Gonzales-Day is perhaps best known for his "Erased Lynching" project in which he alters historic photographs of lynchings by digitally removing the victims.

As described by Holland Carter in the NYTimes, “In each of these pictures … the artist has erased the body of the victim, leaving everything else intact. The tree or telegraph post used for the hanging is there; so is the crowd of witnesses and executioners, posing for the camera or staring up at what is now empty space….Mr. Gonzales-Day's work throws the emphasis on the spectators themselves and makes hard lines between then and now, them and us, difficult to draw.”

Ken Gonzales-Day - The Wonder Gaze: Lynching of Thomas Thurmond & John Holmes in Saint James Park, 1933, San Jose, CA. Erased Lynching series, 2006.

MLMP at the Lewis Museum: Lynching in Maryland exhibit

The long-awaited opening of the permanent exhibit on Lynching in Maryland, created by the Lewis Museum in collaboration with the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project, will take place just days before our annual conference.

Terri Freeman, President of the Lewis Museum, will discuss the creative process and logistical complexities of undertaking this ambitious project. Conference attendees at the Lewis will have the opportunity to visit view the new MLMP permanent Lynching in Maryland exhibit created by the Lewis Museum in collaboration with MLMP (opening in October).

Image courtesy: Quatrefoil Associates

After the Marker
A look at novel approaches some county coalitions are taking to keep their communities engaged in truth and reconciliation efforts.

Homestretch for the MLTRC
The Maryland Lynching Truth & Reconciliation Commission will be concluding its public hearings in the next few months. What have we learned so far and what should be done to maximize the Commission's impact as its work draws to a close.

Additional Features
Other notable speakers scheduled to appear include:

• Delegate Joseline Peña Melnyk
• Activist, Producer and organizer T. Marie King
• Civil rights attorney and educator Ashley Mann
• Award-winning student poets
• and more...!

Watch this space for conference news and program developments!