The emergency convening hosted by Racial Justice NOW!, “Beyond the Pale: the Vilification of Black Men and Boys” was an overwhelming success and was fully supported by the Black and African American Community of Montgomery County, Maryland and the Washington D.C. metro area. The event was held at Yoshow Place in Rockville, Maryland just a few miles from where the Montgomery County, Maryland Council meet and make decisions.
The emergency convening was the brainchild of Racial Justice NOW! Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director Zakiya Sankara-Jabar, who was notified that there had been a recent spike in suicides of Black boys in Montgomery County, Maryland- a most alarming trend. This information multiplied by other factors, sprung Zakiya and RJN! into action.
RJN! was also privy to additional factors that community members found deeply troubling that provided motivation for this emergency convening, including a most recent Maryland House Bill 814 that RJN! and many others (including the ACLU of Maryland) worked against vehemently , only to be signed into law by Governor Wes Moore.
“ …discussing the current political landscape insofar as mass incarceration, and the abominable so-called “justice, justUS system.” These folk are quietly reestablishing the same criminalization tactics from the 94’ crime bill with them completely focused now on widening that net to Black male CHILDREN! Literally…sadly, Maryland was not the only state signing into law the ability to incarcerate, jail, cage children as young as ten, these are babies, haven’t even been through puberty. It’s terrible and as I described in the local media during the fight to stop this, it is uncivilized. It is unacceptable, sadly as a nation, even the world, have normalized Black male oppression and death.”
-Zakiya Sankara-Jabar
Co-Founder, Co-Executive Director
Racial Justice NOW!
After receiving the news of an upward trend in Black boy suicides in the county, RJN! leaders held meetings with the Montgomery County, Maryland County Executive and other elected officials to create solutions to this community problem. After finding limited will and effort to turn this statistic around, RJN! called in Dr. Tommy J. Curry (University of Edinburgh) and other specialists to come to the county to deliver solutions, and the emergency convening “Beyond the Pale: the Vilification of Black Men and Boys” was born!
With nearly two hundred registrants for the event, attendees were in awe by the presentations on these three Black male PHD scholars who held particular expertise in Black Male studies, Psychiatry, and Psychology. Each of the scholars, Dr. Tommy J. Curry, Dr. William Smith (Utah University), and Dr. Evan Auguste (University of Boston) gave jaw dropping presentations that included solutions.
Racial Justice NOW! made history by hosting this ‘emergency convening’. The videos of the event are being made public so that our community can move forward. Thank you to all of our sponsors, supporters, allies, attendees, the speakers and participants, and to the many that sent well wishes of success!
“Also, please keep in mind all of this comes on the heels of Maryland passing into law HB814 which will now allow children as young as 10 years old to be handcuffed and JAILED even before they’ve had due process and have been found “involved” what is essentially being found “guilty” for an adult. As y’all know we fought like hell to stop this travesty that we knew based on current data and history quite frankly that the only children who will be jailed at 10 will be Black boys.
This is deep! A state with the only Black Governor in the country, a Black woman speaker of the Maryland house of delegates and the largest legislative Black caucus in the country gave us a bill that expands mass incarceration and feeds the carceral system with Black male children. The systemic hate and vilification has been normalized for this group of people in this country and beyond. That is UNACCEPTABLE! The time is NOW to make this necessary intervention to literally save the very lives of Black male children.”
-Zakiya Sankara-Jabar
Co-Founder, Co-Executive Director
Racial Justice N
