6th Annual Baltimore County Community Forum

The Baltimore County Lynching Memorial Project will be hosting its 6^th Annual Community Outreach Forum on February 8, 2025 from 10a to 12.30p at Park School of Baltimore. The in-person, free, public program will include a film screening and discussion as well as community education opportunities.

The highlight of the program will be a screening of the documentary, Shuttlesworth, about the life and times of the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth.

Though perhaps not as well known today as Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Shuttlesworth was one of the most important and influential leaders of the civil rights era. King himself called Shuttlesworth, "the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South."

After challenging segregation of public transportation in Birmingham in 1956, his home was bombed on Christmas day that year. Undaunted, he helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957 and served as its secretary until 1970.

Shuttlesworth helped organize the so-called "Freedom Rides" in the early 1960s and led or joined many of the signal protests of the civil rights movement including a series of confrontations in Birmingham and the Selma to Montgomery voting rights march which is credited with helping realize the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

A post-screening discussion will include Dr. Terry Ann Scott, Director of the Institute for Common Power and author of the acclaimed book, Lynching and Leisure.

NEW!!
We have just been able to confirm that T. Marie King, social activist and an Emmy-nominated producer of Shuttlesworth will join the post-screening panel.

Many will remember T. Marie’s engaging and dynamic presentation at MLMP’s 7^th Annual Lynching in Maryland Conference this past fall. (You can view her presentation HERE at approximately 1:06:15.)

The film screening will be followed by community conversation and additional programming, including updates on two important coalition initiatives: the Racial Justice Poetry Contest + Exhibition, and the Truth & Community Remembrance Park in Towson.

The Community Forum is free and open to the public but attendees are urged to register here. Please join us at Park School for this popular and provocative annual event. Coffee, tea, juice and light fare will be provided.

November 1, 2024 - T. Marie King speaks at MLMP annual conference