{"id":2164,"date":"2022-09-19T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-19T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/?p=2164"},"modified":"2023-04-28T08:58:43","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T12:58:43","slug":"ric-supports-trip-to-liberia-for-baltimore-schoolchildren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/2022\/09\/19\/ric-supports-trip-to-liberia-for-baltimore-schoolchildren\/","title":{"rendered":"RIC Supports Trip to Liberia for Baltimore Schoolchildren"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A smile graced every face in Pleasant Hope Baptist Church on a recent Sunday morning. RIC Director Nathan Connolly and RIC postdoctoral fellow Jasmine Blanks Jones&nbsp;presented a commemorative check to the church\u2019s dance ministry, Angels of Praise. Drs. Connolly and Blanks Jones announced that support secured under \u201cInheritance Baltimore,\u201d RIC\u2019s grant-sponsored project, will fund a group trip for at least seven Angels of Praise dancers to Liberia this December. Fundraisers for Angels of Praise, to date, had yielded only 10% of the necessary amount for the trip. But that Sunday Pleasant Hope\u2019s congregation jumped to its feet, shouts rang out, and tambourines thrummed, as Connolly unveiled the oversized check, nearly five feet in length, in the amount of $28,500. &nbsp;\u201cAll y\u2019all going!\u201d Connolly shouted.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The gift represented Inheritance Baltimore\u2019s ongoing relationship with Orita\u2019s Cross Freedom School, established in 2010 by Rev. Heber Brown, III, to support and advance freedom education in Black Baltimore. This collaboration also advances RIC\u2019s commitment to reparative, redistributive, freedom education in the city and beyond. RIC is inviting graduate students from area universities as well, who will join the trip as chroniclers and research collaborators.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"428\" data-src=\"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/files\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-10-at-1.12.55-PM-1024x428.png\" alt=\"Huge smiles on faces as Dr. Connolly presents oversized check for $28,500\" class=\"wp-image-2165 lazyload\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/files\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-10-at-1.12.55-PM-1024x428.png 1024w, https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/files\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-10-at-1.12.55-PM-300x125.png 300w, https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/files\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-10-at-1.12.55-PM-768x321.png 768w, https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/files\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-10-at-1.12.55-PM.png 1130w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/428;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"428\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/files\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-10-at-1.12.55-PM-1024x428.png\" alt=\"Huge smiles on faces as Dr. Connolly presents oversized check for $28,500\" class=\"wp-image-2165\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/files\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-10-at-1.12.55-PM-1024x428.png 1024w, https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/files\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-10-at-1.12.55-PM-300x125.png 300w, https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/files\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-10-at-1.12.55-PM-768x321.png 768w, https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/files\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-10-at-1.12.55-PM.png 1130w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/noscript><figcaption>Dr. Connolly and Dr. Blanks Jones present a check at Pleasant Hope Baptist Church to support a trip to Liberia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In Liberia, the Angels of Praise dancers will join partners from Maryland\u2019s Burning Barriers Building Bridges (B4 Youth Theatre) and Just One Spirit dance ministry, the culmination of more than a year of rehearsing, research, and performances in Virginia and Maryland. These dancers have developed choreography for\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.sendpul.se%2Fu%2FNzAzOTcwOQ%3D%3D%2Fa0asg%2F&amp;data=05%7C01%7Cstuart.schrader%40jhu.edu%7Cce32c11cb2494ecc7ba608da910da5dd%7C9fa4f438b1e6473b803f86f8aedf0dec%7C0%7C0%7C637981785045548767%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=rcda1NAELFuS15u7X6yj%2B%2F9VzHA1Y8Ddeqf8djVPVJU%3D&amp;reserved=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>200 Years of Returns<\/em><\/a>, an original\u202fperformance in commemoration of the Liberian bicentennial. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>RIC postdoctoral fellow Jasmine Blanks Jones founded B4 Youth Theatre in 2010 and has been researching the civic capabilities of youth artists in Maryland and Liberia with an eye toward the transnational connections these youth have built to support visions of liberation. Partnering B4 Youth Theatre with Rev. Brown\u2019s Orita\u2019s Cross Freedom Schooloffered, in the words of Blanks Jones, \u201ca natural fit,\u201d as \u201cyoung artists who were already deeply embedded in a freedom education community\u201d were excited to gather on a weekly basis to rehearse new choreographic material.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>200 Years of Returns<\/em> is a play written through a collaboration between youth theater artists from Liberia and Black Museum Theater actors from Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Virginia. The Angels of Praise choreography provides connective tissue between the scenes of the play, which take place in both present-day Liberia and the DMV region of the United States, depicting the shared struggles and triumphs of freedom-seekers on both sides of the Atlantic in the late 18<sup>th<\/sup>\u202fand early 19<sup>th<\/sup>\u202fcenturies.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Angels of Praise dancers are eager to share what they have learned through performing in the United States over the past few months, and their trip to Liberia will mark the group\u2019s first overseas performance. Maryland and Liberia have a longstanding and deep connection. This performance will renew the connection, while also encouraging it to take new forms, as the dancers enact a practice of creativity and freedom drawing on lessons from their ancestors.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A smile graced every face in Pleasant Hope Baptist Church on a recent Sunday morning. RIC Director Nathan Connolly and RIC postdoctoral fellow Jasmine Blanks Jones\u00a0presented a commemorative check to the church\u2019s dance ministry, Angels of Praise. Drs. Connolly and Blanks Jones announced that support secured under \u201cInheritance Baltimore,\u201d RIC\u2019s grant-sponsored project, will fund a group trip to Liberia this December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":2165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[65,95],"tags":[94,99],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2164"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2164"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2177,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2164\/revisions\/2177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/ric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}