Culture Work: Black Women's Roles in Movement Work
(2:00-3:30pm)
Sheri Parks, American Studies, UMD; Rita Walters, VP of Advancement, MICA; Margaret Musgrove, English and Director Women’s Center, Loyola University

Black Girls Rock!: Centering Black Girls in the Baltimore Narrative
(3:30-5:00pm)
Sheri Parks, American Studies, UMD; Tanefe Wallace, Shameeka Smalling, Ama Chandra, and Erricka Bridgeford

African American women and girls figured prominently in the events leading up to and during the Baltimore unrest. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and the Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby became household names but many other women were visible and vocal. Young women publicly spoke about their lives; older black women spoke to help get people into their homes before curfew. The public roles of women, including the founders of #Black Lives Matter, are contrasted with the silencing of women in the movement of the 1960’s and their erasure from the historical narrative. For example, we have only recently come to understand that women invented many of the strategies of the earlier movement.

Participants will consider together the roles and positions of women in the Baltimore narrative, and how the roles and positions of women and girls have historically been included or excluded in social change narratives. This event is co-sponsored with the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Register here!