May 13, 2019 – 12:00pm, The Billie Holiday Project is pleased to host a luncheon at the George Peabody Library honoring some of Baltimore City’s most promising young scholars. The “Juniors’ Luncheon,” organized in partnership with the Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) Office of College and Career Readiness, will assemble 36 high school juniors for an afternoon of teaching, learning, discovery, and networking with faculty and students of color from the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus. Every BCPS high school will be represented by one student, recommended by a school counselor for his or her record of high academic achievement and scholastic promise.

The event has several goals: to introduce the juniors to Johns Hopkins as a viable college option, provide essential admissions tips, share the success stories of current JHU students from Baltimore, introduce the rigors and fun of college life, and open new pathways of access to the Hopkins community. By providing an access door to the human and intellectual resources of the University, the Billie Holiday Project hopes to stimulate greater communication and engagement between Hopkins and BCPS students, parents, and school counselors. In addition to the interactive presentations, college knowledge games, and panel discussion, members of the Peabody Conservatory jazz ensemble will perform and give a brief presentation on the history of jazz – “America’s classical music.”

Following the lunch program, BCPS students will enjoy a talk delivered by Billie Holiday Project Director, Lawrence Jackson, and two of his advanced students, Francisco Perez Marsilla and Bianca Martone. The trio will present original research unearthed this Spring during an English Department seminar led by Jackson in his capacity as Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of English and History. The lecture presentation, titled “Baltimore’s Billie Holiday: A Journey in Maps and Archives,” begins at 3 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Both the luncheon and lecture are associated with the Hopkins Pathways Program – a broader initiative by partners BHPLA and BCPS to connect Homewood campus resources to secondary schools in the city, and to increase the matriculation of Baltimore’s best and brightest public school students at Hopkins.