In honor of the late US Congressman from Georgia John Lewis, here’s a special Cambridge Forum we recorded in 2001 at the national history museum in Lexington, Massachusetts. Lewis reflects on his lifetime of working for civil rights, first as a young lieutenant of Dr. Martin Luther King and later as a U.S. Congressman.
Has there been progress over his 40-year career?
Here’s a Cambridge Forum classic featuring America’s most amazing writer James Baldwin, the author of The Fire Next Time, Go Tell It On A Mountain. and Notes of a Native Son.
James Baldwin was a Visiting Professor of Literature at Hampshire College from 1983 to 1986. In the spring of 1984, Baldwin visited the harbor campus of the University of Massachusetts in Boston. In our recording, he addresses Black Writers In White America.
Naomi Klein, internationally bestselling author and journalist, describes her latest book, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal explaining how bold climate action can be a blueprint for a just and thriving society.
Recorded October 10, 2019
She was joined by JULIET B. SCHOR, Professor of Sociology at Boston College. This event is co-sponsored by Harvard Book Store, 350 Mass, The Intercept, The Leap, and Sunrise.
With reports spanning from the ghostly Great Barrier Reef, to the annual smoke-choked skies of the Pacific Northwest, to post-hurricane Puerto Rico, to a Vatican attempting an unprecedented “ecological conversion,” Naomi Klein makes the case that we will rise to the existential challenge of climate change only if we are willing to transform the systems that produced this crisis.
An expansive, far-ranging exploration that sees the battle for a greener world as indistinguishable from the fight for our lives, On Fire captures the burning urgency of the climate crisis, as well as the fiery energy of a rising political movement demanding a catalytic Green New Deal.
Recorded 1/30/19 video hereComputers are learning to read our emotions and it is big business. Alexa will soon be servicing all our needs. But can we really trust the robots?
Judith Shulevitz, from the Atlantic Monthly and Maxim Pozdorovkin, film-maker of The Truth About Killer Robots discuss the future of robots.
Political activist, author and Harvard University professor Cornel West speaks on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his national best-seller Race Matters. First published in 1993 following the L.A. riots, the book has since become a groundbreaking classic on race in America.
Race Matters speaks to despair, black conservatism, myths about black sexuality, the crisis in leadership in the black community, and the legacy of Malcolm X. Now more than ever, Cornel West argues, Race Matters is a book for all Americans, as it helps us to build a genuine multiracial democracy in the new millennium.
Recorded 12/5/17
What steps can citizens and governments take to find practical solutions to problems such as mass incarceration, extreme poverty in disadvantaged communities, and problematic notions of black criminality?
Harvard Professor of Government Danielle Allen moderates this discussion with Professors Tommie Shelby, Elizabeth Hinton and Khalil Gibran Muhammed.
This forum is a collaboration with the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard, Harvard Book Store, Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, Harvard University Press and Boston Review.
Recorded on September 20, 2017
Tommie Shelby, author of Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform
Elizabeth Hinton, author of From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America
Khalil Gibran Muhammad, author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America
Recorded on March 19, 2015
PEN-New England recognizes Ferguson activists and bloggers Johnetta Elzie and DeRay McKesson with its 2015 Howard Zinn Freedom to Write award for their work as activists, organizers, and citizen journalists in the Ferguson protest movement. Their reporting and This Is the Movement newsletter engaged and unified disparate voices in the wake of the August 9, 2014, shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri. Jabari Asim, editor-in-chief of The Crisis, leads this discussion of the role of citizen journalism and activism in our changing media landscape. What role did these citizen journalists expect to play in Ferguson? How did their expectations change as their actual role evolved? What lessons does their experience carry for other citizen journalists?
This program is organized and co-sponsored by PEN-New England.
Watch “Witnessing” on YouTube here.
Fifty years ago the Civil Rights Movement was far from declaring victory. The experiences of the 1964 Freedom Summer demonstrated that a legal foundation for African American civil rights may have been a necessary condition but it was hardly sufficient to ensure a peaceful transition to full social and civic equality.
Jack Landron, a young musician well known to Boston-area audiences for his performances as Jackie Washington at Club 47 in Harvard Square, remembers his own journey to Mississippi during the Freedom Summer. What did his lived experience of the Civil Right Movement mean to this 26-year-old musician from Roxbury? Recorded on November 19, 2014
Watch “Freedom Summer” on YouTube here. Co-sponsored by Folk New England and Passim
Anita Hill reflects on her own experience as an African American woman in the late 20th century. How successful have the movements for racial and gender equality been in eliminating barriers to opportunity? Have the victories been robust or fragile? What challenges lie ahead?
Henry “Pistol” Bow Mason pitched in the Negro Leagues for the great Kansas City Monarchs and also in the Majors with the Phillies. Here he shares his experiences of playing baseball in America, playing alongside such greats as Satchel Page, Willy Mays, and Jackie Robinson.
Recorded 3/11/2000
In 1951, after completing high school, Mason left Marshall, Missouri, and headed to Kansas City, where he was offered a tryout with the Kansas City Monarchs. Club manager Buck O’Neil was so impressed with Mason that he signed him with the team. On opening day in 1952, Mason hurled 16 amazing innings to defeat the Philadelphia Stars 3-2.
Henry “Bo” Mason, 88, of Henrico, VA, passed away peacefully on May 29, 2020.
Negro League baseball players earn spots in the National Baseball Hall of Fame
