The colored waiting room empowering the original and the new civil rights movements : conversations between an MLK Jr. confidant and a modern-day activist

Kevin Shird is an activist, public speaker, and associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. Shird began dealingdrugs at the age of sixteen, and later served almost twelve years in prison for drug trafficking. Today he works withyoung people to help them avoid the dangers of street culture and advocates for policy changes that support theirsafety and development. With his friend, award-winning R&B singer Mario (Mario Barrett), Shird cofounded the DoRight Foundation, a nonprofit that from 2008-2014 provided a lifeline to children living with family members abusingdrugs. During the tenure of President Barack Obama, Shird worked with the White House Office on National DrugControl Policy and as part of the committee for President Obama's Clemency Project. During the protests in Baltimorefollowing the death of Freddie Gray, Shird was an action consultant to Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake'sadministration. Today, Shird speaks nationwide on public health policy, reentry into societyafter incarceration, and substance abuse prevention. He teaches the courseLife and Death in Charm City: Histories of PublicHealth in Baltimore, 1750 to the Present in theCenter for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. He lives in Baltimore, MD.

Nelson Malden owned and worked for a half-century at the Malden Brothers Barbershop. Martin Luther King Jr. was aclient of his and the reverend at his church, and the two were friends until King's assassination. During the civil rightsmovement, Malden distributed the Southern Courier newspaper, one of the few newspapers in the South to cover theAfrican American community, and participated in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Later, Malden was the first AfricanAmerican to run for political office in the racially divided city of Montgomery, Alabama. He lives in Montgomery, AL.