The MD LMP's August First Thursday online film discussion group considered one of the most powerful and influential non-fiction films ever made: Ava Duvernay's "13th". Over 200 people were in attendance! Many thanks to the Baltimore County Coalition for their continued planning and organizing of this successful program series.
With breathtaking clarity and heartbreaking effect, "13th" demonstrates how five words in the text of the amendment utterly changed its meaning and impact. Instead of ending slavery, in fact the amendment extended it, changing the course of justice and race relations in this country in ways that are still painfully evident today.
As Bryan Stevenson (Executive Director, Equal Justice Initiative) observed, "Slavery didn't end in 1865, it just evolved." Ms. Duvernay's film proves that proposition in painstaking and undeniable detail.
Thank you for joining us Thursday, August 6, 2020 at 7:00pm for the discussion on the historic and contemporary pernicious effects of the 13th amendment and the role it plays in the Black Lives Matter era.
Panelists included:
Premal Dharia is the Founder and Director of the Defender Impact Initiative, an organization dedicated to making structural changes in the criminal system by working with and empowering public defenders. She served as a public defender in Washington, DC, Baltimore and Guantanamo Bay and has spent 20 years seeking to transform the criminal system to make it more just.
Jim Wyda was appointed the Federal Public Defender for the District of Maryland District in 1998. He grew up in East Baltimore and graduated from Loyola Blakefield before attending Trinity College and Yale Law School. Mr. Wyda clerked for the Honorable Frank Kaufman, US District Judge for the District of Maryland. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland Law School.
The film can be viewed on Netflix, YouTube or at http://www.avaduvernay.com/#/13th/
The next First Thursday Film Discussion will be "The Hate U Give" on October 1, 2020 at 7:00pm. More information will be released closer to the event.
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