Help us remember. Help us reconcile. Help us create reckoning and promote truth.
We invite you to join us as we work to promote truth, remembrance, reconciliation, and reckoning around slavery, racism, and racial violence in Montgomery County, MD.
Members have suggested a number of potential projects moving forward:
Slavery Projects
a) Map sites of plantations that enslaved people.
b) Identify names of enslavers and the enslaved and their descendants.
c) Erect markers where enslaved people were sold.
d) Identify enslaved people attempting to or escaping slavery, including the Underground Railroad.
Historic & Contemporary African American Communities Projects
a) Update the map of these places.
b) Collect oral histories, particularly of elders.
c) Organize field trips.
d) Document resilience, creativity, ingenuity, innovation, and community building.
Racial Violence Projects
a) Continue research on other lynchings, look for descendants of victims and perpetrators, identify examples of racial terror (e.g., KKK), and identify historic and contemporary examples of racial violence or systemic racism (e.g., racial covenants).
b) Hold anniversary ceremonies at lynching sites.
c) Interpret and enhance historical marker sites.
Community Partnerships
a) Organize activities (e.g., speaker series, film showings, workshops, remembrance walks, exhibits).
b) Support the book and a proposed reparations study group.
c) Partner with local educators, researchers, authors, poets, and organizations.
d) Expand resources and materials for public use (e.g., families, students, teachers, researchers, and organizations).
Other
Work on or lead other projects of interest to the community.
To discuss our next steps, we plan on having two meetings over Zoom. We invite you to register for one of the meetings to help jumpstart our next foray into remembrance and reconciliation.
The first project planning meeting is on Sunday, April 28, from 3-5 p.m. on Zoom.
The second project planning meeting is on Tuesday, May 21, from 7-8:30 p.m. on Zoom.
We look forward to working with you as we continue this important work.