Past Events

GBH is proud to be the presenting partner for Boston Book Festival 2023

The Boston Book Festival, one of Boston’s most beloved literary traditions, returns in person to Copley Square. Join more than 200 fiction, nonfiction, YA, and kids authors for a day of readings and discussions, book signings, workshops, and other lively literary events. The BBF also feature kids activities, walking tours, the Copley Square Street Fair, live music, food trucks, and more. And it’s all FREE. Celebrate the power of words. To join the mailing list for more information, visit the website: Bostonbookfest.org. GBH is the presenting partner for Boston Book Festival 2023.

Photo Credit: Boston Book Festival

We are here every Thursday bringing you local musicians to make noise at the library!

Prolific collaborator and award-winning multimedia artist Cliff Notez seamlessly manifests a mix of hip hop, jazz, folk, soul and R&B that’s been likened to “Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, blended with the paranoia of Radiohead’s Kid A.”
Their music reveals the repercussions of trauma, exposes the realities of the Black experience, and shares an intimate journey towards healing. Heavy lyrical themes are often juxtaposed with uplifting sounds: bright horns, sparkling keys, snappy percussion and glowing guitar riffs. Cliff’s art is the perfect visual accompaniment for all of these themes, creating work that is both emotionally challenging while layered with colorful, playful imagery.

Join us for an evening of music, wine, and food. Registration is encouraged for this free event.

Waging economic warfare consists of a variety of measures from implementing sanctions to fomenting labor strikes. Such tools are utilized by states to hinder their enemies, and in the case of the United States have been used as far back as the early 19th century. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, economic warfare has been the main means for the west to challenge Russia. How effective will these sanctions be at convincing Russia to cease its war?

Join WorldBoston for a timely discussion of this topic with Jason Blazakis, Professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and Director of MIIS’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism.

Join Paul Revere House for the second lecture of the Paul Revere House's 2023 Lowell Lecture Series. This 3-part series From Puritans to Catholics: Religion in Boston’s North End examines how shifts in religious traditions impacted cultural expression, demographics, political affiliations and economic status in the North End.

The key speaker is Prof. Jaimie D. Crumley, Assistant Professor, Gender Studies Division and Ethnic Studies Division, University of Utah. This lecture explores the Church of England's interventions in the Puritan North End with Old North's founding in 1723.

Prof. Crumley will also discuss the previously less well-known role of people of color in the Old North Church community during its early days. Presented in partnership with GBH, the Suffolk University History Department, Old North Illuminated, and the North End Historical Society, with funding from the Lowell Institute.

The GBH BPL studio will host Outspoken Saturdays, a spoken word poetry event for emerging artists.. Every first Saturday of the month, the series will be created in collaboration with spoken word artist Amanda Shea.

Registration is encouraged for this free event.

We are here every Thursday bringing you local musicians to make noise at the library!

Valerya, a 23-year-old musician from Mexico City, has dedicated herself to honing her craft and becoming a force to be reckoned with. Her unique sound blends elements of R&B, indie, and Latin music, creating a sound that is uniquely her own. Valerya is committed to using her platform to inspire and empower others. She is passionate about promoting sisterhood and inclusion in the music industry and hopes to be a positive influence for future generations of Mexican femme musicians.

Join us for an evening of music, wine, and food. Registration is encouraged for this free event.

Many people think that America is coming apart at the seams, for a variety of reasons. Most glaringly, polarization has split entire communities, dividing friends and families from each other so that prospects for the next election look grim. However, there might be some good news on the horizon. Literally. Recent research shows that one way to improve voter activity, decrease polarization and boost municipal bond rating is to inject community news into people’s lives. Local news, it would seem, acts as a binding agent for democracy.

Charles Sennott, founder and Editor of The GroundTruth Project discusses with a panel of journalists and media entrepreneurs from around the country how delivering local news can glue democracy back together.

American Experience presents a virtual PAST FORWARD conversation exploring the state of educational equity in American schools nearly seventy years after Brown vs. Board of Education. This conversation is inspired by our two new films The Busing Battleground and The Harvest: Integrating Mississippi's Schools.

Panelists will discuss the meaning of educational equity, the state of equity in American public schools and the avenues through which to pursue it, examining what is lost when students of all backgrounds are not offered the same opportunities to thrive. They will also consider the roles that class and location play in determining who supports and opposes policy that supports educational equity. The panel will discuss whether these factors reflect the success or failure of the decision in Brown and in the broader movement for school integration.

Panelists:

Dr. Ivory Toldson, Ph.D. is the national director of Education Innovation and Research for the NAACP, professor of counseling psychology at Howard University and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Negro Education. Previously, Dr. Toldson was appointed by President Barack Obama to devise national strategies to sustain and expand federal support to HBCUs as the executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He is also the author of Brill Bestseller, No BS (Bad Stats): Black People Need People Who Believe in Black People Enough Not to Believe Every Bad Thing They Hear about Black People.

Dr. Adrienne Dixson Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Education and Civil Rights Initiative, and a Professor of Educational Leadership Studies. Her research primarily focuses on how race, class and gender intersect and impact educational equity in urban schooling contexts. She was recognized in Rick Hess Straight Up Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings in 2021 and 2022 in the top 200 education scholars in the country. In 2021, Dr. Dixson was inducted as a Fellow in the American Educational Research Association.

The discussion will be moderated by Sonya Douglass, Ed.D. Sonya is Professor of Education Leadership and Vice Chair of the Department of Organization and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research examines educational leadership, policy, and politics with a focus on race and the history of Black education in the U.S. She is author of the award-winning book, Learning in a Burning House: Educational Inequality, Ideology, and (Dis)Integration (Teachers College Press, 2011).

The event will be streamed live on our YouTube and Facebook pages.

Photo credit: Credit: Boston Globe/Getty

In celebration of 2023 Boston Book Festival, GBH's Callie Crossley of Under the Radar with Callie Crossley talks with Tiya Miles, a public historian and creative writer whose research focuses on African American, Native American and women’s history during colonial America.

Miles is the Michael Garvey Professor of History at Harvard University, the author of five prize-winning works on the history of slavery and early American race relations, and a 2011 MacArthur Fellowship recipient. She was the founder and director of the Michigan-based ECO Girls program. Her New York Times bestselling book All That She Carried won the National Book Award.

Miles’s latest book Wild Girls, examines how Harriet Tubman, Zitkála-Šá and Louisa May Alcott, among others, found self-understanding in the natural world and became women who changed America. This beautiful, meditative work of history puts girls of all races—and the landscapes they loved—at center stage and reveals the impact of the outdoors on women’s independence, resourcefulness and vision. For these trailblazing women of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, navigating the woods, following the stars, playing sports and taking to the streets in peaceful protest were not only joyful pursuits, but also techniques to resist assimilation, racism, and sexism.

Check out all the 2023 Boston Book Festival Headliners and Keynotes at bostonbookfest.org

Dr. Garlick is known especially for developing stem cells for tissue engineering, specifically for advanced treatments for oral health, cancer, scleroderma and complications of diabetes. He established the Center for Integrated Tissue Engineering at Tufts to accelerate the discovery and clinical application of new drugs using 3D tissues. Dr. Garlick has been equally committed to communicating science to the public. This discussion covers his pioneering stem cell research and how that led to his leadership in science communication.