[ad_1]
By Lisa Mitchell Senaar
Baltimore continues to be the home of brilliant minds. The legacy of my grandmother, Attorney Juanita Jackson Mitchell’s grassroots effort in organizing Baltimore’s City-Wide Young Peoples Forum can be connected to the current, bold work of Ms. Erricka Bridgeforth and the Baltimore Ceasefire 365 Movement.
Juanita Jackson Mitchell (1913-1992), a self described Freedom Fighter, believed mobilization, legislation, litigation, education and the ballot were the tools to gain empowerment.
As college graduates during the depression, Juanita and her sister Virginia organized the City-Wide Young Peoples Forum; and Juanita became president. The Forum held weekly meetings with audiences from several hundred to 2,000 on Friday evenings at area churches from fall into the spring, from 1931 until 1938, with less regularity around 1942.
The Forum raised the political consciousness of the community. It voiced the concerns of young people, created a distinct political environment and engaged in transformative dialogue with the larger Black community. It also provided a social outlet in addition to developing political programs for and by young people. One of the first campaigns was to end lynching, which linked the Forum to the national anti-lynching effort. This campaign included Grandma Mitchell and other members testifying before congress in support of anti-lynching legislation. The Forum promoted local programs like their consumer boycotts against businesses in the Black community that refused to hire Black people. These efforts helped to secure much needed jobs during and after the depression.
In 1942, Juanita Jackson Mitchell (now married) continued her mission. She represented the Baltimore Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in her work with Dr. J.E.T. Camper across organizational boundaries to create the Citizens Committee for Justice (CCJ), mobilizing 2,000 people from 150 organizations to march on Annapolis. Sparked by the fatal shooting of Pvt. Thomas Broadus, a Black soldier by a White police officer on Pennsylvania Avenue, those who marched understood that they could use their mobilization and organization to make the state fairly exercise the law to address inequality in economic, educational, political and social advancement.
Marching on in freedom’s army, in 1950, Juanita Jackson Mitchell became the first Black woman to practice law in the state of Maryland, participating in several landmark civil rights cases in a distinguished legal career.
In this same spirit, Erricka Bridgeford birthed and co-organized the Baltimore Ceasefire 365 movement in May of 2017. She has worked as a mediator since 2001 and Director of Training for Community Mediation Maryland since 2005. In 2007, Erricka’s brother, David, was murdered, shaking her foundation. Deciding to turn her pain into a movement, she testified in support of 2009 legislation to repeal Maryland’s death penalty. Erricka’s voice was said to be the key to the bill’s passage. She was also a leading voice calling for funding for murder victims’ families that was cut from the original bill. So, Erricka in coalition with other murder victims’ families mobilized to continue to advocate for the funding. It was finally added to Maryland’s budget in 2015 and House Bill 0355 passed in the same session. Maryland is only the second state in the country to provide specific funds and resources to murder victims’ family members.
In May 2017, in response to the continued epidemic of gun violence in Baltimore, Erricka Bridgeford and other Baltimore organizers made a city-wide call that “Nobody Kill Anybody” for 72 hours from Aug. 4 through Aug.6. They organized three public meetings before the first Ceasefire weekend, also asking for residents to celebrate life throughout the ceasefire weekend. Like the City-Wide Young Peoples’ Forum, the Baltimore Ceasefire 365 Movement has grown and become so much more. Through independent study and confirmation, it has been documented that there has been a significant reduction in gun violence on Ceasefire weekends.
“We have within our power and within our hands what we need to achieve our full and final emancipation in this country.” said Juanita Jackson Mitchell
Lisa Mitchell Sennaar boasts a lengthy career in broadcasting, with over a decade in television and radio production. Her family, the Jackson/Mitchells of Maryland left their imprint on the Civil Rights Revolution of the 20th Century through serving and helping to build local, state and national organizations. Members of the family have also served at every level of government including the United Nations, House of Representatives, Maryland State Legislature and Baltimore City Council. Lisa is a wife and the mother of two teenagers and she currently works in state government.
[ad_2]
Source link