The evening’s panelists are Hubie Jones, former Director of Roxbury Multi-Service Center; Jean McGuire, Director of METCO, 1973-2016, Zebulon V. Miletsky, PhD, Stony Brook University and author of Before Busing: A History of Boston’s Long Black Freedom Struggle: Lyda Peters, a key aide to the legendary organizer for equity and desegregation Ruth Batson: Vernita Carter-Weller, daughter of Rev. Vernon Carter, who picketed the Boston School Committee for 114 consecutive days in 1965 to help win passage for the 1965 State Racial Imbalance Law: Charles Glen, who served as coordinator at his church for School Day Out Freedom School held on June 11, 1964; Gloria Lee, who as a 12-year-old, participated in the School Stay Out and attended a Freedom School, and Jim Vrabel, Boston historian and author of A People’s History of the New Boston. The evening’s moderator is former Boston Mayor Kim Janey who was bused as a Boston Public School Student.
Virtual
Prof. David Hall, Bartlett Professor of New England Church History Emeritus, Harvard Divinity School
Suffolk University Law School
Suzanne Simard
Boston College - Gasson 100
Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on understanding the impacts of climate change on people and the planet. She is the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy where she leads and coordinates the organization’s scientific efforts. Her areas of expertise include science communication, greenhouse gas emission, and developing and applying high-resolution climate projections for assessing regional to local-scale impacts of climate change on human systems and the natural environment. She holds a BSc in physics from the University of Toronto and an MS and PhD in atmospheric science from the University of Illinois and has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work, including four honorary doctorates and being named a United Nations Champion of the Earth. Rev. Mariama White-Hammond was appointed as Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space in April 2021. In this role, she oversees policy and programs on energy, climate change, food justice, historic preservation, and open space. Over the course of her time with the City, she has supported the amendment of the Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO) to set carbon targets for existing large buildings and convened a city-led green jobs program. Rev. Mariama was born and raised in Boston and began her community engagement in high school, mostly pointedly with Project HIP-HOP (Highways Into the Past - History, Organizing, and Power), a youth organization focused on teaching the history of the Civil Rights Movement and engaging a new generation of young people in activism. After college, she became the Executive Director of Project HIP-HOP, where she served for 13 years. In 2017, she graduated with her Master of Divinity at the Boston University School of Theology and was ordained an elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 2018, she founded New Roots AME Church in Dorchester where she currently pastors. Rev. Mariama uses an intersectional lens in her ecological work, challenging folks to see the connections between immigration and climate change or the relationship between energy policy and economic justice. She has received numerous awards, including the Barr Fellowship, the Celtics Heroes Among Us, The Roxbury Founders Day Award, and the Boston NAACP Image Award. She was selected as one of the Grist 50 Fixers for 2019 and Sojourners 11 Women Shaping the Church. David Sittenfeld serves as Director for the Center for the Environment at the Museum of Science, Boston. Dr. Sittenfeld has been an educator at the Museum for approximately 25 years, overseeing special projects and network-scale activities pertaining to issues that lie at the intersection of science and society. He served as principal investigator for the NOAA-funded Citizen Science, Civics, and Resilient Communities project and co-PI for the Science Center Public Forums project, which implemented community-based science-to-civics activities at 30 US science centers on extreme heat, drought, extreme precipitation, and sea level rise. David led the Wicked Hot Boston and Wicked Hot Mystic projects, which identified heat and air quality-related vulnerabilities in over 20 communities in and around Boston through community-engaged participatory science. David holds a Ph.D. from Northeastern University, where he researched participatory methods and geospatial modeling and visualization techniques about climate-related hazards.
Museum of Science
Tara Kangarlou is an award-winning global affairs journalist who has previously worked with news outlets such as NBC, CNN, CNN International, and Al Jazeera America. She is a frequent on-air contributor for various international news outlets covering the MENA region and global affairs and writes regularly for TIME magazine as well as other news platforms. She has also spent much time covering the rise and fall of ISIS, the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, as well as other pressing humanitarian issues worldwide. Born out of her extensive reporting and firsthand knowledge of the global refugee crisis, in 2016, she founded Art of Hope, the first American nonprofit that strictly focuses on supporting the mental well-being of war-torn refugees and IDPs in vulnerable host communities. She is also the author of the award-winning book "The Heartbeat of Iran", which is the first book available to the western audience that provides an unprecedented insight into the many nuances, textures, and complexities of real life in today's Iran - as told through the stories of ordinary people living inside the country. She is currently an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service teaching at the intersection of journalism and public diplomacy. Tara was born and raised in Tehran, Iran until she moved to the States in her late teens. At the moment, she splits her time between London and Washington. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from UCLA and a Master’s Degree in Journalism from USC. Copies of Ms. Kangarlou's book, The Art of Hope, will be available for purchase and signing after the program.
Boston Public Library - Rabb Lecture Hall
Prof. Jaimie D. Crumley, Assistant Professor, Gender Studies Division and Ethnic Studies Division, University of Utah
Suffolk University Law School
Matthew Desmond
Boston College - Gasson 100
Jason Blazakis
Boston Public Library - Rabb Lecture Hall
Linda Villarosa
Boston College - Gasson 100
Stephen Puleo, Author and Historian
Suffolk University Law School
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