Moderator: Alexi Cohan, Program Moderator Alexi Cohan is a digital producer for GBH News specializing in politics, digital video, and special projects. She also reports stories for GBH News' website and radio, and is the lead producer on Politics IRL, a video series centering Gen Z voters. Before coming to GBH, Alexi was a reporter at The Boston Herald covering health and education. Alexi is a graduate of Hofstra University, where she studied journalism and Spanish. Alexi is from East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, and currently lives in the Boston area.
Old South Meeting House
Dart Adams Malia Lazu Shanique Rodriguez Jill Calistra Lilly Marcelin Amanda Shea
Old South Meeting House
Matthew Wilding
Old South Meeting House
About the Artists AMANDA SHEA Amanda Shea is a two-time Boston Music Award-winning Spoken Word Artist. Shea is an artist, performer, educator, artivist, publicist, host, and curator. She co-founded and curated six iterations of Activating ARTivism, a community festival to amplify POC through art, activism, and resistance. Her work can be found in the Museum of Fine Arts, The Boston Globe, TEDX, TEDXRoxbury, Netflix, Prime Video, BBC News, GBH, and much more. Shea will be releasing her first book, Pieces of Shea, in the spring of 2024. Amanda's work examines her personal life experiences, social justice issues, and healing through trauma utilizing art as the tool. ANITA D. Anita D. is a spoken word artist from Brockton, Massachusetts. Formally a slam competitor, Anita has been on the San Diego Slam Team as well as the House Slam Team of Boston. She has been a finalist in both the National Poetry Slam and the Individual World Poetry Slam. Her work centers around her personal life experiences and covers topics of generational trauma, mental health, domestic violence, women’s rights, and more. She has been featured on the platforms All Def Poetry and Button Poetry where she was acknowledged twice as “Best of Boston.” D. RUFF D. Ruff is a Roxbury-bred spoken word poet, author of "Staying on 94: Tales from a Misguided Soul," Creative Director of Boston Pulse Poetry program, and has been the co-host of the "if you can Feel It, you can Speak It" Open Mic movement for the last 13 years. He has been writing and performing for over 20 years, most recently in the NAACP convention and the Isabella Stewart Gardner production called "Dear Mr. McKeller." Most of his poems stem from personal experiences and his environments and therefore range in topics from black love and heartbreak to inequality and black culture. D. Ruff performs with inspiring passion in hopes that any black body will also want to find a way to express themselves, find that “tribe” and achieve their greatness, with the intention of leaving the cycle of hurt, pain, and negativity right where it was showcased. About the Advisor DANIEL CARPENTER Daniel Carpenter is the Allie S. Freed Professor of Government and Chair of the Department of Government in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Professor Carpenter's research on petitioning appears in his book Democracy by Petition: Popular Politics in Transformation, 1790-1870, which was awarded the J. David Greenstone Prize of the American Political Science Association, the Seymour Martin Lipset Prize of the American Political Science Association and the James P. Hanlan Book Award of the New England Historical Association. He graduated from Georgetown University in 1989 with distinction in Honors Government and received his doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago in 1996. He taught previously at Princeton University (1995-1998) and the University of Michigan (1998-2002).
Old State House
About the Speakers Dr. Kimberly Alexander is on the faculty of the History Department at the University of New Hampshire, where she is Director of Museum Studies and Senior Lecturer. Alexander is a James Hayes Research Fellow for 2023-2024, awarded by the UNH Center for the Humanities. She has held curatorial positions at several New England museums, including the MIT Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, and Strawbery Banke. Her most recent books are Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), which won an Honor Award from Historic New England in 2019, and Fashioning the New England Family (Massachusetts Historical Society, 2021). Zara Anishanslin is a scholar and public historian who specializes in looking at history through material culture. An Associate Professor of History and Art History and the Director of the American Civilization Program at the University of Delaware, she focuses on Early American and Atlantic World History. Her first book, Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World (Yale University Press, 2016) showed how making, buying, and using goods in the 18th century British Atlantic world tied its inhabitants together while allowing for different views of the Empire. When not in the classroom or archives, Anishanslin talks history on a wide variety of podcasts and TV shows and consults on exhibitions, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s early American galleries and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: The Exhibition. Anishanslin is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society. Her next project, Under the King’s Nose: Ex-Pat Patriots during the American Revolution (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), will be published in 2025. Lori Erickson Fidler is Associate Director of Collections for Revolutionary Spaces. She manages the object collections and archives, overseeing collections care, planning, and documentation. Before joining Revolutionary Spaces, Fidler held positions as Curator and Collections Manager, in addition to working as a museum collections and exhibitions consultant. She holds both a bachelor of arts and a master of science in anthropology with a focus on archaeology and museum studies. About the Moderator Martha McNamara is an art and architectural historian who specializes in the visual and material culture of New England. McNamara is Director of the New England Arts and Architecture Program and Co-Director of Architecture in the Department of Art at Wellesley College where she teaches courses in American art and architectural history, historic preservation, the history of cities, and material culture studies. She currently serves as Board Chair of Revolutionary Spaces.
Old South Meeting House
James Nichols-Worley was the lead petitioner for expanding the local voting age to 17 years old in his hometown of Southborough, Massachusetts. His town meeting article was successfully passed at the local level and was introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature in 2023 as Bill H.3874. Nichols-Worley is currently studying Economics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Katherine Silbaugh is a Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law and is widely recognized for her pioneering work on gender, family care, and household labor. She is a leader in the legal literature on the relationship between work and family. Her research highlights the economic and social value of work done within households; the complex relationship between families and institutions, such as employers and schools; and the inadequacy of the legal framework supporting care work. Her publications about the relationship between institutions and family address a range of legal systems from family law and employment law to urban planning and education law. She has intervened in policy matters of particular concern to LGBT individuals, including marriage equality litigation and anti-bullying law and policy. Kelly Siegel-Stechler is a Senior Researcher at CIRCLE, the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Her research is centered on civic development and political socialization in schools. She is primarily focused on projects that advance civic learning and development in K-12 education, as well as questions related to youth political and electoral engagement. Prior to joining CIRCLE, Kelly worked as a Research Fellow with the Institute for Education Policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, where she supported their work on civic development as it relates to curriculum, instruction, and school culture. Andy X. Vargas is the State Representative for the 3rd Essex District (Haverhill) in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He is a member of the Massachusetts Black & Latino Legislative Caucus and was previously elected to the Haverhill City Council, taking office at age 22 and serving as the city’s first Latino elected official. A firm believer in the power of education to empower youth, Vargas passed legislation to mandate civics education for all public school students, ensuring a brighter future for generations to come. James Eldridge has served as State Senator for the Middlesex and Worcester district since January 2009. Senator Eldridge previously served as State Representative for the 37th Middlesex district. He serves as the Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary and the Senate Vice Chair Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. As an activist legislator, Senator Eldridge proudly serves as the Senate Chair of the Criminal Justice Reform Caucus, the Medicare for All Caucus, and the Clean Energy Caucus.
Old South Meeting House
About the Speakers Mike Duncan is one of the most popular history podcasters in the world and author of two New York Times-bestselling books, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic and, most recently, Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution. His award-winning series, The History of Rome, remains a legendary landmark in the history of podcasting. Duncan’s podcast Revolutions ran for 10 seasons over the course of nine years until 2022, and covered the great political revolutions that have driven the course of modern history, including the American, French, and Russian Revolutions. Lori Erickson Fidler is Associate Director of Collections for Revolutionary Spaces. She manages the object collections and archives, overseeing collections care, planning, and documentation. Before joining Revolutionary Spaces, Lori held positions as Curator and Collections Manager in addition to working as a museum collections and exhibitions consultant. She holds both a bachelor of arts and a master of science in anthropology with a focus on archaeology and museum studies.
Arsenal Center for the Arts
Matthew Wilding
Old South Meeting House
Elise (Lise) Breen has investigated the practice of slavery on Cape Ann, resurrecting profiles of individuals who resisted their enslavement as well as their enslavers. She has identified Cape Ann citizens’ participation in the slave trade, surfacing evidence from international archives as well as overlooked local materials from 1685 through the mid-nineteenth century. Lise has shared her research in her many public talks and with local institutions and scholars. Her essay, “Hidden City: Slavery and Gloucester’s Quadricentennial” in Gloucester Encounters: Essays on the Cultural History of the City 1623-2023 was published by the Gloucester Cultural Initiative. Lise co-authored Objects of Myth and Memory, American Indian Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Nerissa Williams Scott is the founder of the Boston-based company That Child Got Talent (TCGT) in 2009 and the producer of Dill. Her career experience includes more than 30 years in performing and media arts and the production of two feature films. Over the past 10 years, Nerissa has served as Production Manager for a variety of live events, theater, fashion films, documentaries, narrative shorts, and music videos in New England. Nerissa also leads the operations of Next Leadership Development Corporation and serves on the board of Women in Film and Video New England (WIFVNE). She received her MFA in Film Production (Emphasis in Producing) from Emerson College.
Old South Meeting House
RAHSAAN HALL is the President and CEO of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts. He leads the Urban League’s efforts to enable communities to overcome racial and social barriers that cause economic inequities and are exacerbated by sexual and domestic violence, by creating employment and economic development opportunities. Previously, Rahsaan served as the Director of the Racial Justice Program for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and prior to that Rahsaan was the Deputy Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice. He also served as an Assistant District Attorney for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. Rahsaan also serves on the boards of the Who We Are Project and the Hyams Foundation and is an ordained reverend in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Rahsaan is a highly sought-after public speaker and has received multiple awards and recognitions for his work, including Boston Magazine’s Top Lawyers 2021, Equal Justice Coalition’s 2019 Beacon of Justice Award, Get Connected‘s 2018 GK100 Boston’s Most Influential People of Color, and the Massachusetts Communities Action Network 2018 Carry It On Leadership Award. ARLINE ISAACSON is a Co-Chair of the Massachusetts GLBTQ Political Caucus (formerly the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus), where she has lobbied on every major LGBTQ+ issue in Massachusetts. Arline advocated for the groundbreaking 1989 gay and lesbian civil rights bill and domestic-partnership benefits for Massachusetts public employees. Her fights have included LGBTQ+ parental rights, anti-bullying bills, hate crimes bills, transgender rights, HIV/AIDS legislation, and banning conversion therapy for minors. Arline also led the legislative battle for marriage equality, making Massachusetts the first state in the nation to defeat a marriage equality ban. SEAN SIMONINI is the founder of the Massachusetts Association of Student Representatives (MASR), an organization that uplifts and empowers student representatives serving on local and state school boards across the Commonwealth. Sean saw firsthand how powerful student sentiment can be after serving on his own school committee during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic and sought to establish a network that encourages students to be leaders in creating the change they want to see. He believes that students are essential partners in building better school environments and uniting communities around our common pursuit of a more accessible and impactful education system.
Old South Meeting House
For the latest information regarding each event please contact the presenting organization.