Hidden in Full View and The Silent Shore: A Story of Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation

Please join Charles L. Chavis, Jr., for a virtual screening of the short film Hidden in Full View, the story of the lynching of Matthew Williams in Salisbury, Maryland, in 1931. This film is the first in a series “that follows the story of brave descendants and witnesses willing to use the truth to fuel restorative justice.” Chavis is the national co-chair of the US Movement for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (US TRHT) and vice-chair of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The #breathewithme Revolution and leaders of the US TRHT are working toward lasting and transformative policies at the local, regional, and national levels to dismantle systemic racism, and for the establishment of a national commission. A key component of this legislative effort is the creation of a distributed Archive of Racial and Cultural Healing (ARCH). Participants in the film screening will learn about TRHT and ARCH on the national level and as demonstrated through the story of the Black community in Salisbury, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

This event is sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Society of American Archivists (SAA), the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), and the 1890 Land-Grant Institutions and Tuskegee University Library Deans/Directors Association, Inc.

Hidden in Full View is a project of the #BreatheWithMe Revolution and the John Mitchell Program at George Mason University, with support from Humanity United.

Who: All members of the library and archives community are welcome.
Date: Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Time: 2:00 p.m.–3:30 p.m. EDT
Where: Zoom webinar
How: Please register online by Wednesday, March 30.  Login instructions will be sent separately.

Program Description

After the viewing of Hidden in Full View, Charles L. Chavis, Jr., will talk about the process of researching and writing The Silent Shore: The Lynching of Matthew Williams and the Politics of Racism in the Free State (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022) with an emphasis on the institutional and descriptive challenges of archival research on communities who have experienced racial harm. He will outline the vision of the Archive of Racial and Cultural Healing on the national and regional levels, and engage in a panel discussion with national leaders in the archives and library community. The program will include opportunities for participants to engage in future educational and collaborative programming to realize ARCH.

Panelists

Charles L. Chavis, Jr., Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution and History and the Founding Director of the John Mitchell, Jr., Program for History, Justice, and Race at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University.

Shanie Shields, President, The Chipman Foundation, Salisbury, Maryland

Lopez D. Matthews, Jr., State Archivist and Public Records Administration, District of Columbia Office of Public Records and Archives

Elaine Westbrooks, Vice Provost for University Libraries and University Librarian, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Sponsors