News

What We Accomplished in 2020

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2020 was a year no one saw coming. Everyone has had their own struggles as well as joys, but the end of the year is also a time to reflect on what we’ve accomplished together!

  • We set up an organizational and leadership structure with committees and clear goals.
  • We created a mission statement and a logo.
  • We held a successful common read of “On the Courthouse Lawn” by Sherrilyn Ifill to learn more about history and the modern ripple effects of lynchings and to reach out into the community.
  • We participated in and promoted a socially distant candlelight vigil for George Floyd.
  • We began planning for our first soil collection ceremony.
  • We utilized technology to create resource lists, maps and other tools to help in our work and generally deepened our research into the history of lynchings in our county.
  • We set up a website and social media presence.
  • We promoted and took part in the 3rd annual Lynching in Maryland Conference, as well as spreading the word about other Maryland Lynching Memorial Project events.
  • We met new people who share common goals of making our communities better.

If you have anything to add to our list of accomplishments, post them in the comments below. Here’s to a new year and the new things to come for PGCLMP in 2021.

Virtual Event, The Lakeland Spirit

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Join the Lakeland Community Heritage Project, in partnership with the American Studies Department of the University of Maryland, and Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, for a virtual presentation of heritage and stories from the Lakeland community of College Park, Maryland, 1950–1980.

This is a virtual event.

Thursday, November 19, 2020 | 7- 8:30pm

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-lakeland-spirit-through-digital-footprint-tickets-124933221629

Lynching in Maryland Conference

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The Maryland Lynching Memorial Project’s annual “Lynching in Maryland” conference will be held online this year due to the ongoing public health emergency. This will be the third year we have presented this program.

This year’s conference will be held:

Saturday, October 17, 2020
10a to 12.30p

One of this year’s keynote speakers will be Michael Pfeifer, Ph.D., Professor of History at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Dr. Pfeifer has studies the history of collective violence and criminal justice in the United States and is the author of no fewer than five books on the history of lynching including a seminal work on the subject, Rough Justice Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947(University of Illinois Press).

At the upcoming conference, Dr. Pfeifer will speak about a relatively neglected chapter in the history of racial terror, namely the lynchings of enslaved persons and free blacks before the Civil War. This period includes the lynching of Dave Thomas in Denton, Md., in 1854, the first documented racial terror lynching in Maryland.

In addition, there will be a timely and important panel discussion on how the legacy of lynching continues to influence the Black vote. Another panel will examine the state of social justice activism in Maryland from the Eastern Shore to Garrett County in the west. There will also be updates from representatives of the MD Lynching Truth & Reconciliation Commission and the Equal Justice Initiative.

Tickets to the virtual conference are $10. We encourage you to register now!

Register Now

PGC LMP Study Group for Summer 2020

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The Prince George’s County Lynching Memorial Project is offering a free Study Group on the acclaimed book  “On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century” by civil rights attorney Sherrilyn A. Ifill. We are reading the 2018 Revised Edition with a forward by Bryan Stevenson, author of “Just Mercy” and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. The book focuses on Eastern Shore lynchings that took place on county courthouse lawns, as did several here in Prince George’s County.

When: Wednesdays, August 12, 19, 26 at 7 pm via Zoom.

We will likely discuss Part One in the first two sessions and Part Two in the third session. Please try to attend all three! 

Advance registration is required: 

https://uuma.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwpcOigpzstE9x-xLhrPdnvA_kxDDm_Gyp2

Available on-line in Paperback, eTextbook, eBook, and Audiobook (read by actress LisaGay Hamilton) at: 

Loyalty Books in DC (Black-owned)
Better World Books (non-profit source of used books)
Busboys and Poets
Beacon Press (the publisher)
Barnes and Noble
Amazon
Prince George’s County Library System (check availability–request purchase!)

Don’t forget to register yourself!