A new documentary film about life in Jim Crow-era Baltimore has been produced by faculty members at Towson University in Maryland. The film – Voices of Baltimore: Life Under Segregation – recently was premiered on the Towson University campus.
The film presents oral histories of seven Baltimore residents who recount growing up in the city before the civil rights era. The producers are developing a curriculum guidebook to accompany the film that could be the basis for a course offered by the university’s College of Education.
Gary Homana, an assistant professor of education and one of the producers/directors of the film, said that “the purpose of the work is to serve as a way for students to critically analyze the continuing struggles around issues of equity, power, privilege, segregation and social justice faced in schools and neighborhoods across the country.”
A video about the film can be seen below.
While documentaries are important and valuable, readers and viewers who consider themselves historically and contemporaneously informed would do well to acknowledge that Jim Crow Baltimore (my beloved hometown) is alive and well in 2018.