Expert on Policies for (and against) America’s Poor, 50 years after MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign, March 12

The University of Baltimore’s semester-long conversation about the history and impact of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign will continue on Monday, March 12, when Peter Edelman, the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Public Policy and the faculty director of the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Georgetown University Law Center, will present, via Skype, his singular perspective on poverty in the U.S. The presentation, interview, and audience Q&A will be facilitated by Marc Steiner. The session will take place beginning at 5:30 p.m. in UB’s Town Hall, located in the H. Mebane Turner Learning Commons, 1415 Maryland Ave. This event, as are all events in UB’s semester-long examination at King’s legacy and its impact on social justice today, is free and open to the public.

In addition to his Georgetown Law professorship and direction of the Center on Poverty and Inequality there, Peter Edelman is the author of Not a Crime to Be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America and So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s So Hard to End Poverty in America (The New Press). He was a top advisor and speechwriter for Senator Robert F. Kennedy on poverty and related issues. He served in the Clinton administration and resigned as the assistant director for planning and evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services immediately after President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Since that time he has been a scholar, thought leader, author, and activist on policies affecting America’s poor.

Marc Steiner has been a fixture in Baltimore media and public affairs for 25 years, beginning with his radio show on WJHU, which continued on WYPR and WEAA. He has become one of the most recognized voices in Maryland and has gained national acclaim for his insightful style of interviewing. As president of the Center for Emerging Media, he won a Peabody Award, the most distinguished award in broadcast media, for the series “Just Words.” Mr. Steiner participated in the Poor People’s Campaign, spending five weeks during 1968 in “Resurrection City” (on the National Mall).

Women in the Civil Rights Movement, 03/14

Join Professor Josh Clark Davis and the University of Baltimore on Wednesday, March 14 for the Women in the Civil Rights Movement featuring Judy Richardson and Betty Robinson. Ms. Richardson and Ms. Robinson are veterans of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other organizations in the movement, are very active today with current movements against racism (for example SURJ), and with preserving the history of the movement. Ms. Richardson was also a producer of both Eyes on the Prizes series.

Professor Davis will be moderating the discussion with Ms. Richardson and Ms. Robinson on Wednesday, March 14 at 5.30 PM in the Law School’s Moot Court Room, followed by a reception and book signing of Hands on the Freedom
Plow: Personal Accounts By Women in SNCC.

Experts, Activists Discuss Housing Needs Still Unmet, 50 Years After MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign Demanded Government Action, 3/5.

The University of Baltimore’s semester-long conversation about the history and impact of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign will continue on Monday, March 5, when a panel of experts and activists revisit the demand for decent, affordable housing articulated by the campaign—a demand which remains unmet today. A panel of experts will discuss the developments, policies, and laws that bear on the housing crisis, facilitated by Marc Steiner. The session will take place beginning at 5:30 p.m. in UB’s Town Hall, located in the H. Mebane Turner Learning Commons, 1415 Maryland Ave. This event, as are all events in UB’s extensive examination of King’s legacy and its impact on social justice today, is free and open to the public.

About the panelists:

Ciera Dunlap is the case manager at Youth Empowered Society, a drop-in day center for homeless youth, 18-24. She serves on the Journey Home Board—Baltimore’s HUD required Continuum of Care for ending homelessness by focusing on permanent supportive housing. She has herself experienced homelessness.

Sara Pratt practices law in the area of fair housing and civil rights, including cases involving segregation and civil rights violations, currently for the law firm of Relman, Dane & Colfax PLLC in Washington, D.C. Previously, Pratt was deputy assistant secretary for Enforcement and Programs at HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, and oversaw the agency’s national enforcement of the Fair Housing Act and other civil rights laws. She negotiated the settlement of a HUD complaint against Baltimore County and in 2015 settled a lending redlining case that was the largest such settlement in the history of the Fair Housing Act. In addition to government roles, Pratt staffed the National Commission on Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, co-chaired by former HUD Secretaries Jack Kemp and Henry Cisneros, and helped prepare a report issued in December 2009 on the future of fair housing. She assisted with the development of the report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, “Residential Segregation and Housing Discrimination in the United States,” issued in January 2008. Her article, “Civil Rights Strategies to Increase Mobility,” was recently published by the Yale Law Journal. She has worked as an advocate, attorney, trainer and fair housing and civil rights expert for more than 40 years.

Tony Simmons is a staff member for Baltimore’s Right to Housing Alliance. His interview on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition focused national attention on the scourge of homelessness and the daily struggles of the homeless populations for the basic elements of survival. Like Dunlap and Williams, he has himself experienced homelessness.
Jeff Singer organizes, does policy work, and undertakes outreach for CASH: City Advocates in Solidarity with the Homeless. For 15 years, he has worked for the Baltimore City Department of Social Services, and for 25 years at Health Care for the Homeless in fields including child and adult protective services; mental health, addiction, HIV services; and nonprofit administration. Singer retired in 2011 after the agency’s one millionth patient visit. During the 1990s, he directed the National Mobilization Project for the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, seeking to create the right to housing and health care in the U.S. Singer helped organize the Baltimore Homeless Union, the People’s Homesteading Group, the Homeless Persons Representation Project, Housing Our Neighbors, the People’s Vacant Housing Survey, and the self-managed homeless shelter, Eutaw Center. He has published articles in street newspapers and academic journals, and authored books on health care, housing, poverty, addictions, homelessness, and justice. Singer is now an outreach worker and instructor in social policy and surrealism.

Marc Steiner has been a fixture in Baltimore media and public affairs for 25 years, beginning with his radio show on WJHU, which continued on WYPR and WEAA. He has become one of the most recognized voices in Maryland and has gained national acclaim for his insightful style of interviewing. As president of the Center for Emerging Media, he won a Peabody Award, the most distinguished award in broadcast media, for the series “Just Words.” Steiner participated in the Poor People’s Campaign, spending five weeks during 1968 in “Resurrection City” on the National Mall.

Anthony Williams serves as sexton at the First Unitarian Church. The play, The King of Howard Street, based on his journals of homelessness, was performed at the Annex Theater last year. Williams chairs the Journey Home Consumer Advisory Committee, which advises the Journey Home and the Mayor’s Office of Human Services on the views of homeless individuals. Like Dunlap, Williams serves on the Journey Home Board and has himself experienced homelessness.
Learn more about UB’s semester-long look at the Poor People’s Campaign.

Join us for the Poor People’s Campaign:

On Monday, February 12 at 5:30 pm, three direct participants in the campaign—the University of Baltimore’s Lenneal Henderson, the Center for Emerging Media’s Marc Steiner, and Robert Houston, whose first professional assignment was to photograph the campaign, which led to a landmark in photographic journalism—will consider the Poor People’s Campaign as an occurrence of its time as well as a harbinger of the re-emergent economic activism of recent years.

Joshua Clark Davis, assistant professor in the Division of Legal, Ethical and Historical Studies and author of Head Shops to Whole Foods, will update one thread of the economic initiative to broaden participation through the efforts of cooperatives. Elizabeth M. Nix, associate professor in the Division of Legal, Ethical and Historical Studies and a nationally recognized expert on Baltimore’s unrest following King’s murder in 1968, will serve as interlocutor for this and the subsequent session. Nix co-edited an anthology entitled Baltimore ’68: Riots and Rebirth in an American City and co-wrote Introduction to Public History: Interpreting the Past, Engaging Audiences.

Poor People’s Campaign: 50 Years Later:
Join us on Monday, Feb. 12, 5:30 p.m. at the University of Baltimore H. Mebane Turner Learning Commons, Town Hall 1415 Maryland Ave. Baltimore, MD 21201

This event is free and open to all.

You are invited to the following event:
“IN THE AFTERMATH OF FREDDIE GRAY” WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED AND WHERE ARE WE GOING?

Attend Event

Event to be held at the following time, date, and location:
Friday, May 20, 2016 from 8:30 AM to 2:00 PM (EDT)
Sollers Point Multi Purpose Center
323 Sollers Point Rd
Dundalk, MD 21222

**SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKERS ADDED**

OPENING SPEAKER – Baltimore Youth Poet Laureate Derick Ebert will kick off the event
PLENARY SPEAKER – Baltimore City Councilman Brandon Scott

JOIN US FOR THIS FREE EVENT! Breakfast and lunch will be provided for all attendees who register!

One year ago, the city of Baltimore came under intense scrutiny as the latest city in America to grapple with police and community tensions. In the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s death while in police custody, Marylanders across the state have been asking: “What now?”

The Maryland Coalition Opposed to Violence & Extremism (COVE) invites you to join us for an engaging day of panel presentations and discussion to try to address that question.

Guest speakers include:

Chief Gary Gardner – Chief of Police, Howard County Police Department

Erricka Bridgeford – Motivational Speaker & Community Activist, Training Director for Community Mediation Maryland, Coordinator for Baltimore Girls: Illuminating Souls and Co-leader of Village Keepers, an organization whose goal is to reduce emotional and physical violence in Baltimore.

Faraji Muhammed – Youth Empowerment Coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, Director of Peace for Peace By Piece Baltimore, and Host of Listen Up! on WEAA 88.9 FM & Co-Host of The Larry Young Morning Show (PRAISE 106.1 FM).

Chief William McMahon – Acting Executive Director of the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commission.

Harpreet Singh Mokha – Mid-Atlantic Region Director for the Community Relations Service (CRS), U.S. Department of Justice

And many more!

This event is sponsored in parternship with Baltimore County Human Relations Commission, Howard County Office of Human Rights, Maryland Commission on Civil Rights (MCCR), Maryland Assocoation of Human Rights Agencies (MAHRA), Maryland Association of Multicultural Education (NAME) Maryland Chapter, & National Association of Human Rights Workers (NAHRW).

*Please notify organizer if you have any accommodation requests.

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Cheers,
The Maryland Coalition Opposed to Violence & Extremism