MADP 2021 Annual Meeting

MADP 2021 Annual Meeting hosted by the Springfield Chapter of MADP. 

June 26th, 12:30-3:00PM

Register at: http://bit.ly/MADPAnnualMeeting

From Cherokee Nation to St. Louis, Missouri, racial injustices have persisted for centuries in the heart of so called America. Join Missourians for Alternative to the Death Penalty on June 26th, 2021 from 12:30 - 3PM for MADP’s Annual Meeting held online featuring a panel discussion and Q&A with renowned author and historian Walter Johnson, along with author and journalist Betty Ridge. Moderated by Nimrod Chapel, Board President of MADP.

June 26th 2021 Agenda:

12:30-1:30: Membership Meeting with incoming Board Members

1:30-2:00: Annual Program feat Walter Johnson and Betty Ridge

2:00-3:00: Q&A with Walter Johnson and Betty Ridge

Participants are welcome to join all or part of the days agenda.

About Featured Guests:

Walter Johnson - The Broken Heart of America by Walter Johnson is a searing portrait of the racial dynamics that lie inescapably at the heart of our nation, told through the turbulent history of the city of St. Louis. From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past.

St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor black residents, from slavery through redlining and urban renewal. But it was once also America's most radical city, home to anti-capitalist immigrants, the Civil War's first general emancipation, and the nation's first general strike—a legacy of resistance that endures.A blistering history of a city's rise and decline, The Broken Heart of America will forever change how we think about the United States.

Betty Ridge - Betty Smith Ridge, a native of Springfield, worked as a journalist in Oklahoma for 35 years. Covering government, politics, crime and courts, Betty witnessed the first execution in Oklahoma after the death penalty was reinstated in that case, and also covered Native American issues in the area. Her late husband was a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and she has family members in the Cherokee Nation, United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, Muscogee Creek Nation, and Seneca Nation of Indians. Adopted as an infant, she learned after taking a DNA test in 2017 that her great-grandmother was Aleut Alaska Native. A graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Betty is the author of “Deadlines”, published in 2015, which chronicles her life and career.

Her experiences covering crime and courts led her to believe the death penalty is not warranted in today’s society for many reasons. As a journalist, she covered the first execution in Oklahoma in nearly a quarter century. Like other minority groups in this country, Native Americans are overrepresented in prisons and on death row. She will discuss her experiences covering crime and courts in Indian Country, including the case of a distant relative of her husband, who was wrongfully executed in 1892 for a crime he did not commit.

For more information visit www.madpmo.org - @madpmo

Contact: info@madpmo.org - 816-931-4177