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The opening session will describe the month-long celebration of the 2022 Black History theme, Black Health and Wellness, and will invite viewers to join with ASALH in acknowledging the legacy of Black scholars and medical practitioners in Western medicine, and other ways of knowing throughout the African Diaspora.

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location

Chicago Symphony Center

SAVE the date

Our annual Black History Concert Series honors and celebrates Africana music and its indelible impact on Chicago and the world.

This year, we shift our focus from history to tomorrow's horizons as we celebrate Black Futures Month. We honor not just the contributions and achievements of people of African descent throughout history, but today's visionaries-motivating a new generation of free thinkers, leaders, innovators and advocates. Uniting Voices Chicago continues its commitment to rigorous performance education and the visibility of authentic Africana music by celebrating Afrofuturism, the convergence of art, science, technology, and accurate histories of Africana civilizations in pursuit of infinite liberation and possibility. Join us for a musical journey through time and space, spanning genres of jazz, soul, funk, pop, hip-hop, African-American spiritual and Afrobeat.
Ticketing
Tickets are free and general admission, and you may RSVP for up to six tickets at this time. Limited tickets will also be available at the door. Upon arrival at the Chicago Symphony Center, you will check in with the Uniting Voices Chicago info desk to receive your tickets. For larger parties and accessibility needs, please reach out to info@unitingvoiceschicago.org!
Parking
We recommend parking at the Grant Park South Garage, located at 325 S. Michigan Ave. For a full list of transit and parking options, visit the Chicago Symphony Center website.

Please enter Symphony Center through the main doors at 200 S. Michigan Ave.

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Black Futures Concert Series: Afrofuturism: The Freedom Metropolis:...

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Our annual Black History Concert Series honors and celebrates Africana music and its indelible impact on Chicago and the world. This year, we shift our focus from history to tomorrow's horizons as we celebrate Black Futures Month. Join us for a musical journey through time and space, spanning...

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The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)

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The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)

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National Museum of African American History and Culture

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John Lewis: Good Trouble:  FREE Screening

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John Lewis: Good Trouble:  FREE Screening

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Trouble FREE Screening

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John Lewis: Good Trouble FREE Screening | Discover Atlanta

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Learn more about the upcoming John Lewis: Good Trouble FREE Screening event taking place in Atlanta.

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Lovely One: A Memoir [Jackson, Ketanji Brown] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Lovely One: A Memoir

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I LOVE movies. Here is a good list of movies to check out.

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Movies for Black History Month — a staff-created list from Saint Paul Public Library

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Some of my picks for films of the past 35 years that celebrate Black history and Black culture, expressing many facets of the Black American experience. Annotations are from AllMovie unless otherwise noted. (J.C.)

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Collection Highlights: African American Artists

In 1927 James Weldon Johnson, a key figure in what would come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance, published his masterwork, God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. Inspired by African American preachers whose eloquent orations he viewed as an art form, Johnson sought to translate into verse not only the biblical parables that served as the subjects of the sermons, but also the passion with which they were delivered-the cadence and rhythm of the inspirational language. Identifying black preachers as God's instruments on earth, or "God's trombones," Johnson celebrated a key element of traditional black culture. Years before the publication of his poems, while traveling through the Midwest as a field organizer for the NAACP, Johnson witnessed a gifted black preacher rouse a congregation drifting toward sleep. Summoning his oratorical powers, the preacher abandoned his prepared text, stepped down from the pulpit, and delivered-indeed, performed-an impassioned sermon. Impressed by what he had seen, Johnson made notes on the spot, but he did not translate the experience into sermon-poems until several years later. Upon publication, God's Trombones attracted considerable attention-not only for Johnson's verse, but also for the astonishing illustrations that accompanied the poems. Created by Aaron Douglas, a young African American artist who had recently settled in Harlem, the images were an early manifestation of a compositional style that would later become synonymous with the Harlem Renaissance. Drawn by the cultural excitement stirring in Harlem during the mid-1920s, Douglas arrived in New York in 1925. He soon became a student of Winold Reiss, a German-born artist and illustrator and early proponent of European modernism in America. It was Reiss who encouraged Douglas to study African art as well as the compositional and tonal innovations of the European modernists. Before long, illustrations by Douglas began appearing in The Crisis, the NAACP publication edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, and Opportunity: The Journal of Negro Life, published by the National Urban League. Impressed by these illustrations, James Weldon Johnson asked Douglas to illustrate his forthcoming book of poems, God's Trombones. On short deadline, Douglas created eight bold and unmistakably modern images that clearly reflect the influence of Reiss as well as the artist's close study of African art.

Several years after the publication of God's Trombones, Douglas began translating the eight illustrations he had created to accompany Johnson's poems into large oil paintings. The Judgment Day, the final painting in the series of eight, was the first work by Douglas to enter the Gallery's collection. At the center of the composition a powerful black Gabriel stands astride earth and sea. With a trumpet call, the archangel summons the nations of the earth to judgment.

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Collection Highlights: African American Artists In 1927 James Weldon Johnson, a key figure in what would come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance, published his masterwork, God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse.

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Podcast episode features highlights of historic contributions to public health and a fantastic interview with Matthew McCurdy of BlkHlth, a nonprofit committed to engaging the public and health professionals on the impact of racism on health and equipping them to do something about it.

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Historically, health and medical systems have mistreated and exploited Black communities, and the impact of these injustices continues to affect Black health today. This week on Health Wanted, host Laurel Bristow and guest Matthew McCurdy discuss systemic racism, health disparities, and the important public health and medical contributions that Black scientists, doctors, and everyday people have made to public health.

In the Q&A, Bristow answers questions on the country's WHO status, the federal health agency communications ban, bird flu risk in cats, the safety of shopping local, and Sick of the Week breaks down the Red Rye No. 3 ban.

Referenced this episode:

Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington

Racism: Science and Tools for the Public Health Professional, by Dr. Chandra Ford

For a full rundown on all the information shared in today's episode, take a look at the Show Notes.

Have a question for Laurel? Send it to healthwanted@wabe.org or leave a voicemail at 404-888-3630!

For more, visit wabe.org/healthwanted

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Historically, health and medical systems have mistreated and exploited Black communities, and the impact of these injustices continues to affect Black health to

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Registration not required. Google Meet link is below.

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Celebrate Black History Month with the Pride@Purdue Global ERG! 

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Celebrate Black History Month with the Pride@Purdue Global ERG! 

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Join the Pride@Purdue Global ERG as we celebrate Black History Month by honoring the contributions of remarkable Black LGBTQIA2S+ figures. We'll host a workshop featuring inspiring stories and legacies of individuals who have shaped history and culture.

This interactive session will be a chance to learn, reflect, and celebrate the intersection of Black and queer identities. We'll explore the lives and achievements of 10 trailblazing individuals through engaging questions and discussions. We'll also discuss actionable steps we can all take to be better allies to Black queer people.

Date: Thursday, February 13, 2025

Time: 12:00 PM EST

Place: Google Meet

Please share this with your coworkers and join us for this important and informative event. More details about the specific figures we'll discuss will be revealed during the workshop.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Pride ERG Leadership

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If you live in the San Antonio area, San Antonio Colleges have a great line-up of events to celebrate Black History Month!

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Come and celebrate the kickoff of Black History Month with black-owned businesses and community organizations in the SAC Mall. The first 100 participants will receive a free lunch from black-owned and operated Mission Kitchen.

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A Story of Justice and Redemption

A powerful true story about the Equal Justice Initiative, the people we represent, and the importance of confronting injustice, Just Mercy is a bestselling book by Bryan Stevenson that has been adapted into a feature film.

About EJI &
Bryan Stevenson

Equal Justice Initiative

EJI is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. Founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author of Just Mercy, EJI is a private, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in Montgomery, Alabama.

LEARN MORE ABOUT EJI

Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. A widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned, he has won numerous awards, including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Prize and the ACLU's National Medal of Liberty.

JUST MERCY - #1 New York Times Bestseller

The Book

An unforgettable true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to end mass incarceration in America - from one of the most inspiring lawyers of our time.

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned.

Just Mercy tells the story of EJI, from the early days with a small staff facing the nation's highest death sentencing and execution rates, through a successful campaign to challenge the cruel practice of sentencing children to die in prison, to revolutionary projects designed to confront Americans with our history of racial injustice.

One of EJI's first clients was Walter McMillian, a young Black man who was sentenced to die for the murder of a young white woman that he didn't commit. The case exemplifies how the death penalty in America is a direct descendant of lynching - a system that treats the rich and guilty better than the poor and innocent.

Download discussion guide

The message of this book . . . is that evil can be overcome, a difference can be made. Just Mercy will make you upset and it will make you hopeful.

Ted Conover / The New York Times Book Review

Selected as a

New York Times Best Seller

Winner of the

Dayton Literary Peace Prize

Winner of a

NAACP Image Award for Nonfiction

Finalist for the

Kirkus Reviews Prize

Winner of a

Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

Selected as a

An American Library Association Notable Book

The Movie

Just Mercy takes us inside America's broken criminal justice system and compels us to confront inequality and injustice.

Based on the bestselling book, the Just Mercy movie presents the unforgettable story of Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) and the case of Walter McMillian (Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx), who was convicted and sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit.

Download discussion guide

I spent most of Just Mercy devastated by its most rueful death-row inmate, only to belatedly realize that it was [Rob] Morgan who was breaking my heart.

Wesley Morris / The New York Times

Just Mercy is a handsome, impeccably mounted tribute to [Stevenson's] activism and also his fellow advocates.

Justin Chang / Los Angeles Times

Winner of

ABA Silver Gavel Award

Winner of the National Board of Review's

Freedom of Expression Award

Earned audience score of

99% on Rotten Tomatoes

Michael B. Jordan Winner of

BET Award for Best Actor

Winner of

Christopher Award

Winner of

Four NAACP Image Awards

Winner of American Black Film Festival

Movie of the Year

Jamie Foxx Winner of American Black Film Festival

Excellence in the Arts Award

Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson, Rob Morgan, Tim Blake Nelson, Andrene Ward-Hammond, O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Karan Kendrick

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. He had barely opened the nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, when he agreed to represent Walter McMillian, a Black man wrongly convicted of killing a white woman in the town that inspired To Kill a Mockingbird.

Clients

Just Mercy tells the story of EJI's clients, from Walter McMillian and Anthony Ray Hinton - who were exonerated from Alabama's death row - to Joe Sullivan and Ian Manuel - who won release after being sentenced to die in prison for nonhomicide crimes in Florida when they were just 13 years old. We invite you to learn more about the clients featured in the book below.

Sign up to stay connected and receive updates about EJI's work.

By submitting this form, you are granting: Equal Justice Initiative, 122 Commerce Street, Montgomery, Alabama, 36104, United States, http://www.eji.org permission to email you. You may unsubscribe via the link found at the bottom of every email. (See our Email Privacy Policy for details.) Emails are serviced by Mailchimp.

FAQ

If you have additional questions about Just Mercy or the work of EJI, please visit eji.org.

Is Just Mercy a true story?

Yes. The movie is based on an actual case that is detailed in Bryan Stevenson's book, Just Mercy, published in 2014. Bryan took on Walter McMillian's case in 1988 to challenge his wrongful conviction and death sentence. Over the next six years, Bryan filed multiple legal challenges and conducted several hearings, but the trial court refused to grant Mr. McMillian a new trial despite overwhelming evidence of innocence, including the recantation of the State's main witness, Ralph Myers. Bryan appealed the ruling and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial because the State withheld evidence of Mr. McMillian's innocence. Bryan filed a motion to dismiss all charges; the trial court granted it after the district attorney acknowledged Mr. McMillian's innocence. While the movie condenses the six years of litigation, it mostly tracks the actual account presented in the book. Mr. McMillian's claim of innocence attracted national attention as broadcast a story about the case. The movie accurately introduces other people represented by Bryan Stevenson, including Herbert Richardson, a Vietnam War veteran who was executed in 1989, and Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent nearly 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit.

What made the Walter McMillian case unique?

Sadly, while the McMillian case had some unique features, there are actually lots of people who are innocent who have been sentenced to death in the United States. Because Mr. McMillian was accused of a crime that took place in Monroeville, Alabama, the community where Harper Lee grew up and wrote the beloved novel To Kill a Mockingbird, there were interesting dynamics at play in the case. While the Monroeville community loves the Mockingbird story and took great pride in its association with the fictional characters of the book, there was tremendous resistance to recognizing Mr. McMillian's innocence despite overwhelming evidence. Walter McMillian and Ralph Myers were both placed on death row before going to trial, which is illegal and a rare form of coercion. After Mr. Myers agreed to give false testimony against Mr. McMillian, he was removed from death row. Mr. McMillian spent 15 months on death row awaiting his trial in an effort to pressure him into pleading guilty. The case was unique as well because the trial judge, Robert E. Lee Key Jr., moved the trial from Monroe County, which is over 40% Black, to Baldwin County, which had a much smaller Black population, making a nearly all-white jury more likely. Despite that change of venue, the jury that convicted Mr. McMillian of capital murder sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole. In Alabama, the trial judge has the authority to override a jury's verdict of life and impose the death penalty, which is what happened. Judge override of life verdicts has been a unique characteristic of the death penalty in Alabama. The Walter McMillian case is also significant because it was one of the very early cases where a death row prisoner was proved innocent after being sentenced to death despite death penalty reforms in the 1970s and early 1980s.

What happened to Walter McMillian after his release?

Walter McMillian stayed in Alabama after his release. Bryan and the staff at EJI filed civil rights lawsuits against state and local officials for putting him on death row before his trial and for violating his rights. The case settled out of court after several years of litigation. Because police, prosecutors, and judges are immune from judgments that require them to make payments to people victimized by abuse of authority and wrongdoing, the settlement compensation was much less than had been hoped. An effort to make the sheriff accountable went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, but the Court ruled that the sheriff could be protected from liability based on immunity laws. With the money that was obtained for Mr. McMillian, he was able to work in Monroe County selling scrap metal. About 10 years after his release, he began showing symptoms of early onset dementia, which some doctors believed was caused by the trauma of his ordeal on death row. Mr. McMillian died in 2013. He and Bryan remained close friends, occasionally traveling together to talk to audiences about the death penalty. They appeared at a United States Senate hearing shortly after Mr. McMillian's release to testify about the need for ending the death penalty and for reform of the criminal justice system. Read Mr. McMillian's statement.

How often are innocent people sentenced to death?

Since 1973, more than 165 people have been released from death row after evidence of their innocence was uncovered. A shocking rate of error has emerged: for every nine people executed in this country, one innocent person has been exonerated. Wrongful convictions have been found to result from erroneous eyewitness identifications, false and coerced confessions, misconduct by police and prosecutors, inadequate legal defense, false or misleading forensic evidence, and perjury by witnesses who are promised lenient treatment or other incentives in exchange for their testimony. Nine people have been exonerated in Alabama. Walter McMillian, Randall Padgett, Gary Drinkard, Louis Griffin, Wesley Quick, James Cochran, Charles Bufford, Anthony Ray Hinton, and Daniel Moore were found not guilty of the crimes that originally put them on Alabama's death row.

How does the Just Mercy book differ from the movie?

The book provides much more historical context for the issues raised in the movie and provides detail about our nation's evolving embrace of mass incarceration and excessive punishment. The book discusses many more clients and cases than the McMillian case depicted in the movie. The book focuses a lot on Bryan and EJI's work challenging the adult prosecution of children, some of whom were condemned to die in prison when they were 13 or 14 years of age. Bryan explores the evolution of mass incarceration and the impact on the poor, people of color, and people who are disfavored. The impact of over-incarceration on the mentally disabled and the growing numbers of people sentenced harshly because of mental illness is detailed. There are chapters that explore the increasing incarceration rates for women and how many women are criminalized for being poor. Bryan's own journey dealing with racial bias, police violence, and the enormous obstacles that must be overcome to do justice are more fully developed in the book, which recently was adapted for young adults.

How can I learn more about the issues raised in the movie?

In addition to reading the book, Just Mercy, you should visit EJI in Montgomery, Alabama. EJI has recently opened a major cultural complex to educate the public about our nation's history of racial injustice and the implications of that history for issues like mass incarceration and the death penalty. The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration opened in April 2018 along with the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which is dedicated to thousands of African American victims of lynching. EJI's Peace and Justice Memorial Center provides daily presentations about EJI's work and the sites. Over 600,000 people have visited these sites. Visit eji.org to take a closer look at the work of EJI.

Do you have resources for discussing Just Mercy with students or community groups?

Yes, we have a Discussion Guide that provides background information and selected topics for discussing the Just Mercy movie with students, community groups, friends, and family. You can also download this discussion guide for students and groups who are reading the Just Mercy book.

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Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson | Bestselling Book and Adapted Film

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'Just Mercy' is a bestselling book telling the story of EJI and who we represent, that has been adapted into a feature film.

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February 21 1965: Malcolm X is assassinated.  

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February 21 1965: Malcolm X is assassinated.  