A Conversation with Nelson Malden and Kevin Shird, Author of The Colored Waiting Room

Join us for a special conversation with civil rights activist Nelson Malden and Kevin Shird, author of The Colored Waiting Room:  Empowering the Original and the new Civil Rights Movements.

In Montgomery, Alabama, at the height of the civil rights movement, Nelson Malden’s barbershop was where the courageous leaders of the civil rights movement, including his friend Martin Luther King Jr., gathered to organize protests and boycotts and to write the speeches that would help criminalize racial segregation and discrimination.  In The Colored Waiting Room: Empowering the Original and the New Civil Rights Movements, activist Kevin Shird heads from his hometown of Baltimore, MD to Montgomery to meet eighty-four-year-old Nelson Malden and contextualize the significance of recent racially motivated events, and the demonstrations in Charlottesville, Ferguson, Baltimore, and around the country.  The result is a groundbreaking understanding of today’s burgeoning second-wave civil rights movement and the urgent actions necessary for racial equality and change. Shird raises the profound question of whether blacks are still in a colored waiting room, biding their time and waiting for racial equality to be the norm.

This is a unique opportunity to meet and hear author Kevin Shird and eighty-four year old, Nelson Malden, speak on the civil rights movement - then and now - in an intimate setting. Time will be allotted for attendees to engage with the speakers for questions and dialogue.

This program is for Maryland Philanthropy Network Members and invited guests only. Lunch will be served.