In virtually every corner of the Boston metro region, an issue that comes up frequently is how people face down institutional racism. This collection of talks draws together a diverse group of leaders and thinkers tackling distinct problems that grow out of persisting racist views.
Using Imagine Boston 2030 as a framework, panelists from the planning, design, and development community address how parts of the city’s vision for the future can be achieved using more inclusive and equitable practices to shape the built environment. Designers and developers are playing a significant role in shaping the future of Boston, and who gets a seat at the table impacts more than just how our city looks. We have the chance to play a key role in improving the economic opportunity for all residents, attracting and retaining a more diverse workforce, and creating a stronger, more inclusive future for Boston. Presented by the Boston Society of Architects/AIA (BSA) and DREAM Collaborative.
Representatives from the most innovative and dynamic programs in the country will convene to testify to the range, scope, and depth of prison education. Organizers will highlight the work that has been done at Harvard, and what's next. Featuring Michelle Jones, NYU and Indiana Women's Prison Higher Education Program; Steven Hahn and José Diaz, NYU Prison Education Program; Garrett Felber and Paul Henry Grice III, Liberation Literacy; Kaia Stern and Catherine Sirois, Harvard Prison Studies Project; Darren Mack, Center for Justice at Columbia Univ., Just Leadership USA, Bard Prison Initiative; Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor and Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard. _Presented by Harvard University's Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Inequality in America Initiative, and Mahindra Center for the Humanities._ Photo credit: Pixbay
Boston Review, Harvard Book Store, Mass Humanities, and the Cambridge Public Library welcome a panel of acclaimed educators--Brandon Terry, Tommie Shelby, Elizabeth Hinton, and Cornel West--to discuss the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Race Matters contains West's most powerful essays on issues relevant to black Americans: despair, black conservatism, black-Jewish relations, myths about black sexuality, the crisis in leadership in the black community, and the legacy of Malcolm X. For the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Race Matters, Cornel West reminds us why race still matters and considers the way these issues are crucial to building a genuine multiracial democracy. (Image: Book Cover)
The United States leads the world in the rate of incarceration - the number of people in prisons in the US has more than quadrupled over the last forty years. Racial disparities are a hallmark of incarceration today, families are torn apart, and communities disrupted by the school to prison pipeline. The opportunities for education and true rehabilitation for those returning to their communities are few and far between. The Massachusetts legislature is creating reform for our state right at this moment. Hear from four Lenny Zakim Fund grantees who are working for that reform.
JCC Greater Boston convened a panel composed of a former prosecutor, criminal justice professor, civil rights attorney, sentencing reform activist, and a wrongfully convicted individual to explore racial inequities throughout the legal system. They discuss the criminal justice system's issues of racial bias, which have lead to a miscarriage of justice ranging from police violence and brutality to presumption of guilt and wrongful convictions. In the post-Ferguson era, it is critical for many people with many voices to examine the role that race plays in the criminal justice system from policing to prosecuting. (Image: Deval Kulshrestha/Lady Justice/CC BY-SA 4.0)
Consider some of the differences in health statistic outcomes between races in the U.S., such as infant mortality rates, populations living with asthma or diabetes. Add to that data on which populations suffer in tenuous living conditions or lack good public transit to health facilities, and you can perceive how systemic racism contributes to health disparities. In its third annual Anne Bonnyman Symposium, members and friends of Trinity Church explore these issues and seek to develop specific ways to create positive change in the city of Boston and beyond. State Representative Jeffrey Sánchez, Chairman of the Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee, delivers the keynote speech to begin a day of talks to consider the following: - Access to quality health care and services - Impact of legislation and education on disparities in health - Faith and spirituality in personal and systemic well-being - Wellness and healthy choices - Racism as trauma - Violence as a public health issue Photo: [U.S. Air Force airmen from the 133rd and 148th Medical Group, Minnesota Air National Guard,](http://www.airforcemedicine.af.mil/Media-Center/Art/igphoto/2001778449/ "")
As we witness an outpouring of public expression about racial differences in the news and via social media, we sense a tension over the nature of lawful civic engagement and around the obligations between citizens and their government. Young adults especially are raising fundamental questions about the responsiveness of American democracy. As part of its mission, the Museum of African American History will use this forum to provide opportunities for people to engage in constructive dialogue about civil and human rights issues. The conversation with Joy Reid, political analyst for MSNBC and host of “AM Joy,” and Jelani Cobb, Professor of Journalism at Columbia University, will be moderated by Callie Crossley, host of Under the Radar with Callie Crossley on WGBH Radio. In view of the current social climate in this country, MAAH will produce a series of panel discussions entitled _Millennium Conversation: Race in the Public Dialogue_ through which we are asking activists, journalists, and academic and business leaders to address the current societal issues.
Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Farah Stockman hosts a conversation in Roxbury's historic Hibernian Hall to celebrate the culmination of weeks of neighborhood readings on the historic busing crisis that ripped Boston apart in the 1970s. An upcoming film, _The Harvest_, co-produced by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist/historian Douglas Blackmon and award-winning documentary filmmaker Sam Pollard is the impetus for the conversation. Portions of the film inform the conversation. The discussion, moderated by Stockman, includes two former residents of Boston: Michael Patrick MacDonald, who grew up in South Boston’s Old Colony housing project during the 1970s busing crisis, and Cheryl Harris, who grew up in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston and experienced the social and political upheaval first-hand as a young mother. The film explores the legacy of public school integration in Blackmon’s hometown of Leland, Mississippi. This Roxbury conversation will find the parallels in the Boston busing crisis and Boston's ongoing issues of system racism.
As part of the [Boston Office of Resilience and Racial Equity speaker series](https://www.boston.gov/calendar/resilience-and-racial-equity-speaker-series-karen-abrams ""), Pittsburgh urban planner and Harvard Graduate School of Design Loeb fellow Karen Abrams discusses how she built up healthy community participation in Pittsburgh processes. Abrams tackled head-on the biggest obstacle that prevented her colleagues from engaging communities affected by change and development: they never spent time together. Abrams shares success stories and tips for building relationships and changing racial dynamics, encouraging ownership of changes within a neighborhood. Photo Credit: [Sebastiaan ter Burg](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 "community") [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
