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City-Wide Young People's Forum.36
A number of important literary and artistic figures were also involved,
including Countee Cullen, Grace Lumpkin, F.E. Brown, Barbara Alexander, and
Eugene Gordon. Leading participants in the conference process from Baltimore
included figures involved with the ILD and the communist movement including
Linwood Koger, J. Howard Payne, Gough McDaniels, and white Johns Hopkins
professor of philosophy, Albert Blumberg, who was just then emerging as a left-
wing leader. In addition, from the more moderate sectors of the Baltimore
movement, W.A.C. Hughes of the Forum and Ralph Matthews of the Afro were
billed to take part; no doubt many others on the more militant wing of the
Baltimore freedom movement attended as well.
On the first night of the conference, a tribunal was set up to hear evidence
against those allegedly responsible for the lynching of George Armwood. Many
state and local officials were "subpoenaed," but, to no one's surprise, they declined
to attend. An unfortunate sectarian note was introduced when summonses were
also sent to figures in the Baltimore anti-lynching movement who had crossed
swords with the local ILD, including Judge Joseph Ulman of the BUL, Rev. C.C.
Ferguson of Bethel AME, and (of all people!) BUL executive secretary, Edward
Lewis. The conference was by reports a success, and a boost to the anti-lynching
movement locally and nationally - although it did not result in major
organizational gains in Baltimore. °
Organizationally speaking, the most portentous development during the
Baltimore anti-lynching protests grew out of another mass protest meeting
mentioned above - the meeting keynoted by Roy Wilkins and Roger Baldwin. This
meeting launched the Maryland Ami-Lynching Federation, an association devoted
to securing anti-lynching legislation and educating against lynching. As noted
above, this meeting was based on a broad coalition of African American and white
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