Ellie Atkins is a rising senior at Boston College studying Political Science and History, with research interests in global political violence and insurgent movements. As an Undergraduate Research Fellow with the Political Violence Project, she has led a team of 20 undergraduates examining insurgency movements and public perceptions of terrorism. Her undergraduate honors thesis explores the diverse roles of women in paramilitary organizations and their impact on group legitimacy and political outcomes.

Heidi Beirich is an expert on the American and European far right, including white supremacist, antisemitic, anti-immigrant, antigovernment and other extremist movements. In 2020, Beirich co-founded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) to monitor and counter increasingly transnational hate movements, particularly in areas of the world where capacity is limited to combat far-right movements that threaten human rights and democracy.

Join John Infranca of Suffolk University Law School and Sara Bronin of the National Zoning Atlas for the launch of the Massachusetts Zoning Atlas, the first resource to comprehensively visualize zoning conditions across the 352 zoning jurisdictions in the Commonwealth.

The Massachusetts Zoning Atlas compiles data from more than 46,000 pages of zoning codes and includes information for over 5,500 zoning districts. It presents this data in an accessible, interactive map that displays key zoning information for each district and enables users to make apples-to-apples comparisons of zoning codes across cities and towns.

During the event, they will share how the zoning atlas was created and demonstrate how it can be used to analyze zoning throughout the state. Abundant Housing Massachusetts Executive Director Jesse Kanson-Benanav and Citizens' Housing and Planing Association Director of Municipal Engagement Lily Linke will share remarks as we discuss how legislators, housing advocates, and the general public can enlist the Atlas to inform zoning reform efforts, support legislative campaigns, aid public education on zoning’s impact and effects, and enable new inroads for scholarly land use research.

The Massachusetts Zoning Atlas is part of the National Zoning Atlas, a project of Land Use Atlas, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization working to digitize, demystify, and democratize zoning information about zoning conditions in more than 33,000 jurisdictions in the United States.

Explore the Massachusetts Zoning Atlas at https://www.zoningatlas.org/atlas.

Lily Linke is the Director of Municipal Engagement for Citizens' Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA). In her role, she oversees the Municipal Engagement Initiative (MEI), which works directly with local advocates to build pro-housing coalitions; the MBTA Communities Engagement Technical Assistance Program (aka 3ATA), which supports planners in their efforts to implement Section 3A; and a wide array of educational programming.

John Infranca is Professor of Law and Director of Faculty Scholarship & Research at Suffolk University Law School. He will serve as a visiting professor of law at Yale Law School in Spring 2026, teaching courses in land use law and election law.

Take a deep dive into drama with GBH's Drama Editor, from a new Revolutionary War series to Shakespeare on the Common to some returning favorites.

Fannie Lou Hamer's America: An America ReFramed Special is a portrait of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer and the injustices in America that made her work essential. Working with groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Fannie Lou Hamer devoted herself to fighting for voting rights and Black political representation. Her efforts would mobilize thousands of Black people to register to vote. Through public speeches, personal interviews, and powerful songs of the fearless Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist, Fannie Lou Hamer's America: An America ReFramed Special explores and celebrates the lesser-known life of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest leaders.

After the screening, there will be a talkback with the film’s director and editor, Joy Davenport; Monica Land, executive producer and niece of Fannie Lou Hamer; and Kate Clifford Larson, bestselling author of the critically acclaimed biography Walk With Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer. The evening’s moderator is Thato R. Mwosa, an award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, playwright, and illustrator.

Monica Land is an award-winning journalist and has been writing for local and national media outlets for more than twenty-five years. She specializes in investigative and statistical reporting, feature and enterprise articles, general news writing and historical research. As the niece of civil rights icon, Fannie Lou Hamer, Land has written numerous feature articles about Hamer, as well as an essay for the book, PIECES FROM THE PAST: VOICES OF HEROIC WOMEN IN CIVIL RIGHTS (2011) published by Joan H. Sadoff and Tasora Books. Land has also produced historical segments for Entertainment Tonight and A&E's Biography.

Joy Elaine Davenport is a multimedia director, editor, and composer who specializes in building layered, emotional narratives from a variety of original and archival sources. Her directorial debut, "Fannie Lou Hamer's America," premiered nationally on PBS in February 2022 and continues to screen around the world.

Excavated between 1639 and 1641, the Mother Brook canal in Dedham is arguably the oldest power canal in North America. The waterway connects the Charles and the Neponset Rivers by way of an inland spring-fed brook. This created a fall of water that was strong enough to power the town’s first grist mill.

Join the Charles River Museum for a night with Judy Neiswander who will be discussing industrial uses of the canal and East Dedham’s evolution into a powerhouse of textile production.