Part of the 2018 Magic City Poetry Festival
In this panel discussion featuring writer/thinker Kiese Laymon, artists, and community members discuss the role the media has played in the representation or misrepresentation of Birmingham and the American South and the progress (or lack thereof) we've made. The media had a lot to do with the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1965 because of the national coverage of the Birmingham Campaign of the Civil Rights Movement, but that same media has either held the South in suspended animation.
How can the South navigate these misrepresentations to make way for real progress, and how can it serve as an example or a radar for the US’ progress at large? This panel will take place on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and it will serve as a commemoration of this tragic moment in American history.
This event will take place in Conference Hall of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
6-6:15pm: poetry invocation and introduction by Ashley M. Jones
6:15-6:45: reading/address by Kiese Laymon
6:45 – 7:15: reading by Jacqueline Trimble (to be confirmed)
7:15-7:45: Q&A
7:45-8: book sales and signing