'Eroding History' screening and discussion

Description

Join the SNF Agora Institute for a screening of Eroding History, a film co-written and produced by SNF Agora Visiting Fellow Rona Kobell. After the film, Kobell will lead a discussion with Deal Island residents Chanelle Acheamfour and Renee Chapman; Blacks of the Chesapeake founder and Chesapeake historian Vincent Leggett; and University of Maryland agroecologist Kate Tully.

Eroding History tells the story of two Black communities on Maryland's Deal Island Peninsula that are losing their land and their history due to the intersection of historical racism and modern climate changes. Many of those interviewed are related to the writer James Baldwin, whose mother grew up on the island. André Chung, a news and portrait photographer who won the 2021 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for Domestic Photography, directed Eroding History. West Baltimore filmmaker and journalist Sean Yoes co-wrote and co-produced the film. Longtime Chesapeake Bay chronicler Kobell produced and co-wrote it. Kobell's Master of Arts thesis at the University of Maryland inspired the film, and she will spend this year turning her research into a book.

Eroding History is among the few Chesapeake Bay films that center Black communities at the forefront of climate change. Black people are often on the lowest land, because that was the only land that was available to them. On the Eastern Shore, where everything is low, the lowest spot is a dangerous place. Rising water, saltwater intrusion, and marsh migration are endangering Black lands at a rapid pace. That Black filmmakers are telling these stories is important, and Environmental Justice Journalism Initiative, a nonprofit Kobell co-founded, is providing a platform for telling and disseminating these films.

This event is co-sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Department of History, Department of Anthropology, Office of Sustainability, Center for Environmental Science and Studies, and the Center for Africana Studies.