We're Live at the Baltimore Museum of Art, September 7!
The conference, "Baltimore's Hard Histories," kicks off with a keynote discussion between Jamelle Bouie, Sherrilyn Ifill, and Asma Naeem. Registration is open.
“Baltimore’s Hard Histories”: Join us live Thursday evening, September 7th at the BMA. Zoom in all-day Friday, September 8. And don’t miss the chance to be with the Billie Holiday Center for Liberation Arts for their Fifth Annual Jazz at Lafayette Square, Saturday afternoon, September 9.
Thursday evening, September 7. Keynote Conversation In-Person.
“Baltimore’s Hard Histories” kicks off on Thursday evening, September 7, 2023, with a keynote conversation between columnist Jamelle Bouie, civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill, and museum director Asma Naeem, led by Hard Histories at Hopkins director Martha Jones. Hard histories promote change at colleges and universities, but also in the Supreme Court chamber, on the pages of the New York Times, and at the galleries of the Baltimore Museum of Art. These leaders will discuss the promises and the challenges of work that reckons with the myths, silences, and partial truths that undergird racism and discrimination. How, they will consider, do frank confrontations with the past promote transformations in our landscapes, narratives, leadership, and missions? How does understanding the past promote justice and equity in the present?
John Guess, Jr., CEO of the Houston Museum of African American Culture, will host this conversation.
This event is free and open to the public with registration here.
Friday, September 8, Roundtables via Zoom
Baltimore’s Hard Histories continues on Friday, September 8, 2023, with a day of roundtable conversations at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. In Baltimore, the sum of our work is greater than its parts and we at Hard Histories at Hopkins hope this gathering will help make that manifest. Through the experiences of hard history practitioners in the city’s schools, museums, cultural institutions, and faith communities, the day’s four roundtables will explore how participants research their institutions’ pasts of racism and discrimination. With new knowledge comes change, and panelists will share the resulting transformations in the narratives they tell, naming and memorialization of their landscapes, changes in how their institutions are led and by whom, and how confrontations with hard histories have reshaped the heart of their missions.
Zoom registration is available here.
Saturday, September 9. Jazz in the Square.
Join the Billie Holiday Center for Liberation Arts, and founding director Lawrence Jackson, for Jazz in Lafayette Square, a musical celebration of the rich and important legacy of Baltimore’s own jazz legend Billie Holiday. Held at Lafayette Square Park, corner of Arlington Avenue and Lafayette Street, the event will be alive with performances on Saturday, September 9, 2023, 2 – 6pm. Performances will be provided by The Nasar Abadey Jazz Quartet--Sean Jones (trumpet), Herman Burney (bass), Richard Johnson (keys) and Abadey (drums)--with special guest vocalist, recording artist Charenée Wade, professor of vocals and Jazz Studies at Peabody. Product vendors will be on hand as well as community organizations with displays and information sharing throughout the day. Additional performers this year include DJ Charles Dockins, and the Peabody Jazz Graduate Fellowship. The festival will be hosted by renowned poet, writer, and professor Kondwani Fidel and is free to the public. Guests are encouraged to bring blankets and lounge chairs.
For more information and to register for this FREE event, visit https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/billie-holiday-project/ .