Change Can't Wait: A Justice and Equity Agenda For Boston's Black and Brown Communities

Date: 

Thursday, October 7, 2021, 5:00pm to 6:15pm

Location: 

Virtual event, registration required

The upcoming Boston Mayoral election promises to bring Boston into a new era of politics with the growing likelihood of electing the first non-white male Mayor in Boston’s history. However, with the litany of prevailing social issues impacting Black and Brown communities, will this election truly represent the change that so many have waited decades for?

Join the Ash Center, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Center for Public Leadership, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston for the first of two sessions in the "What Justice Looks Like" event series focusing on the urgent issues—from economic and climate justice to immigration and mass incarceration —that the next Mayor of Boston must address to rectify structural inequities and support Black and Brown communities. We'll hear from grassroots advocates working every day for meaningful social change on the ground about what an agenda for justice and equity in Black and Brown communities should look like.

Speakers include: 

  • Paige Curtis, Ujima Project
  • James Mackey, Stuck on Replay
  • Christine Ntagengwa, MIRA Coalition
  • Cierra Peters, Ujima Project

Moderators: David Corbie, HKS MPA 2023, and Yanilda González, HKS Assistant Professor

Register here

Virtual Event Recording

About the What Justice Looks Like Event Series 

Protests in cities across the U.S against racialized police violence, along with mass protest movements from Chile to Colombia to Haiti against long-running structural inequality and exclusion, have demonstrated that policymakers and political leaders routinely remain disconnected from, or actively ignore and silence, the experiences of communities directly harmed by their policies. 

“What Justice Looks Like” takes a perspective of “public policy from below” by centering the voices of those on the ground level of struggles for justice, but traditionally excluded from the halls of power.  This discussion series centers the voices and experiences of activists and communities directly affected by state violence and mass incarceration in trauma-informed conversations about (in)justice, power, resistance, and pathways to racial justice, equity and meaningful change. 

Convened by Assistant Professor Yanilda González. Sponsored by Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Center for Public Leadership, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, and the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at the Wiener Center for Social Policy.