When They See Us: Reckoning With History
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Lord Baltimore Hotel
Baltimore Theatre – Mezzanine
PARKING
Download a map here.
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Whether it’s family history, historical references to national monuments, or authenic stories of African American survival in Baltimore’s forgotten neighborhoods, three esteemed authors seek to unravel myths, reveal injustices, and in their own way, examine what it means to be truly seen in light of complicated history. How the past is present – still- in us.” Listening to these stories will likely encourage one’s own deep exploration into family, place, color and status, and long-held myths in families and communities. A prizewinning scholar of Black history, including Vanguard, Martha S. Jones, the author of The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir delves into her family’s past for answers and delivers a “deeply felt meditation on the most fundamental matters of identity, belonging, and family.” Irvin Weathersby is a Brooklyn-based writer, a professor from New Orleans, and the author of In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space, which #1 New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynold’s says, “helps us examine some of the stone grotesquerie erected and living among us—the remainders of before, the reminders of blood. And in doing so with such care, he’s granted us this work, a new monument to gaze at.” Karsonya (Kaye) Wise Whitehead is a professor at Loyola University Maryland and the founding executive director of the Karson Institute for Race, Peace, & Social Justice. She is also the host of the award-winning radio show Today with Dr. Kaye on WEAA, 88.9 FM, and the author of five books, including the recently released my mother’s tomorrow: dispatches from Baltimore’s Black Butterfly. AFRO Special Projects Editor, Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware says her work “brings to the community the ever-sounding alarm, ‘Injustice over here,’ and she does it with historical acumen and spiritual determination.” Moderator Dr. Lawrence Jackson is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor for the English and History Departments at Johns Hopkins University. He also serves as the director for the Billie Holiday Center for Liberation Arts.
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Martha Jones is a writer, historian, and commentator whose work examines the history of race racism in law in the United States. She’s a professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University, where she also directs the hard histories at Hopkins project. Her most recent book is The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir coming in March from Basic Books.
www.Marthasjones.com
X: @marthasjones
Instagram: @marthasjones
Irvin Weathersby is a Brooklyn-based writer and professor from New Orleans, whose recent work, In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space is part memoir and part reflection on how our creation myths as Americans often contradict our nation’s true history, explores America’s museums and monuments, explores America’s museums and monuments. His writing has been featured in LitHub, Guernica, Esquire, The Atlantic, EBONY, and elsewhere. He has earned an MFA from The New School, an MA from Morgan State University, and a BA from Morehouse College. He has received fellowships and awards from the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, the Research Foundation of CUNY, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Mellon Foundation.
www.irvinweathersby.com
Instagram: @irvinwrites
Karsonya (Kaye) Wise Whitehead is a professor of communication and African and African American Studies at Loyola University Maryland and the founding executive director of the Karson Institute for Race, Peace, & Social Justice. She is also the host of the award-winning radio show Today with Dr. Kaye on WEAA, 88.9 FM, and the recent recipient of the Rev. John LaFarge, S.J. Award for her contributions to the struggle for racial justice and commitment to advancing the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She is the author of five books, including the recently released my mother’s tomorrow: dispatches from Baltimore’s Black Butterfly; Letters to My Black Sons: Raising Boys in a Post-Racial America; and the award-winning Notes from a Colored Girl: The Civil War Pocket Diaries of Emilie Francis Davis. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and lives in Baltimore with her family.
www.loyola.edu/join-us/karson-institute
X: @kayewhitehead
Instagram: @blackmommyactivist
Lawrence Jackson is the author of the award-winning books Chester B. Himes: A Biography, The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, My Father’s Name: A Black Virginia Family after the Civil War and Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius, 1913-1952. Harper’s Magazine, Paris Review and Best American Essays have published his criticism and non-fiction. Professor Jackson earned a PhD in English and American literature at Stanford University, and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, and the William J. Fulbright program. He began his teaching career at Howard University in 1997 and he is now Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of English and History at Johns Hopkins University. His latest books are Hold It Real Still: Clint Eastwood, Race, and the Cinema of the American West and Shelter: A Black Tale from Homeland, Baltimore. In addition to his writing and research, Professor Jackson launched and now serves as director of the Billie Holiday Center for Liberation Arts, an initiative that showcases the unique arts, history, and culture of Baltimore. Founded in 2017, the project fosters organic links between the intellectual life of Johns Hopkins University and the city’s historic African-American communities, celebrating the strengths and potential of both. The BHCLA serves a cultural purpose, hosting regular events to nurture such connections, as well as an archival one, protecting artifacts of African-American culture and politics. He is writing a biography of Billie Holiday, focusing on her early years in Baltimore City.
https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/billie-holiday-project/
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CityLit Project in partnership with Lord Baltimore Hotel and Red Emma’s present CityLit Festival: Our Stories Give Light To Our Future. This celebration of the arts showcases a bevy of leading poets and writers on April 5, 2025. We’re talking fiction, nonfiction, poetry galore, and ways to up the ante on your craft.
Download the CityLit Festival: Our Stories Give Light To Our Future flyer.