The Barber of Little Rock (Film Screening and Discussion)

The Maryland Lynching Memorial Project has heard your requests to bring back our highly successful film series. In an exciting partnership with the Institute for Common Power, we are launching the 2025 film program with a virtual screening of The Barber of Little Rock. Film directors John Hoffman and Christine Turner follow Arlo Washington, a local barber, as he helps members of his community escape the hazards of banking while Black. This 2024 Oscar-nominated documentary/short asks us to consider the roles that history, institutions, racism, trust, and ingenuity have on communities and their residents.

In 2022 and 2023, the MLMP screened Christine Turner's earlier film, Lynching Postcards: "Token of a Great Day", which was met with much acclaim.

The online screening of the 35-minute film will be followed by a conversation with special guests including:

• Arlo Washington, the star of the film, had been a barber for about 10 years when he founded People Trust, a literacy non-profit in 2008, the same year he opened the for-profit, Washington Barber College. Washington states: “A barber is a community-based person, so as a barber, I was able to identify what was going on and saw the need for financial services.”
• John Hoffman has stated he was "destined to become a documentary filmmaker." He is a six-time Emmy award-winning filmmaker who spent time with Discovery and HBO. He has directed and executive produced numerous films including The Barber of Little Rock.
  
• Dr. Terry Anne Scott is an award-winning historian, author, and speaker. She is the Director of the Institute for Common Power, an educational 501(c)3 branch of Common Power. She is a former Professor of African American History and Chair of the Department of History at Hood College, is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Sports History, and a member of the Editorial Staff for the Journal of American History. Terry serves on the board of directors of the MLMP.
• Amy S. Millin is the is the President of the MLMP where her passion rests in the ways that community programming creates opportunity for conversation in local, state, and national spaces. She serves as a Commissioner on the Maryland Lynching Truth & Reconciliation Commission—the first and only such Commission in the country. She is adjunct in the MA in Cultural Sustainability and MA in Historic Preservation programs at Goucher College.

The Barber of Little Rock was nominated for the 2024 Academy Award Best Documentary/Short film and received recognition from the Heartland International Film Festival. It was an official selection at the St. Louis International Film Festival, the Woodstock Film Festival, and the Hamptons Doc Fest. In addition, it was short listed for DOC NYC and winner of the Indy Shorts International Film Festival.