RSVP - ACCL Presents Community Voices - A Documentary, Discussions, and Networking - Friday, August 26 (at 4:00 PM) - Middlesex Community College's Academic Arts Center, 240 Central Street, Lowell MA
On Friday, August 26, 2022,
The African Community Center of Lowell, together with UML Professor Dr. Robert Forrant and Martiza Grooms, will host a documentary, discussions, and networking at Middlesex Community College's
Academic Arts Center. This free event is open to all community members, Lowellians, historians, and folks interested in the story of our city. Complimentary, light refreshments will be served.
First, African Immigrant and Refugee community members will share and demonstrate African music and customs, including a deep dive into a traditional naming ceremony among the Akan society of Ghana, West Africa. This segment will allow for discussion and questions from the audience.
Next, an exclusive viewing of the 40-minute, prize-winning documentary
A Contradictory Place. This film about Lowell before the U.S. Civil War discusses the extraordinary anti-slavery efforts that took place in Lowell in the mid-19th century when the cotton mills, which relied on enslaved labor in the South, were at their peak. Tons of cotton arrived in the city every week to fuel cloth production. Eighty percent of all mill expenditures went to Southern plantations. Robert Forrant and Maritza Grooms visit the sites that still exist in downtown Lowell where abolitionist activity occurred, freedom seekers operated small businesses, female mill workers organized against slavery, and numerous individuals who’d escaped enslavement spoke against the institution of slavery.
The Foundation of the Alliance for Community Media recently gave the documentary by Wendy Blom, Robert Forrant, Martiza Grooms, Caroline Gallagher, and the Lowell Telemedia Center a
national award in the category of Racial Justice and Civil Rights Programming for 2022.
Our evening will conclude with a panel style Q+A session with the filmmakers.
This event is open to all, and will be facilitated by ACCL Director Gordon Donkoh-Halm.
Please RSVP below to attend. You should plan to arrive at
MCC's Academic Arts Center at 240 Central Street, Lowell MA in Lowell, MA by 4:00 PM. We aspire to end by 7:00 PM.
Your voice matters! Attend Community Voices and be engaged.
