Aug 27- Rev. Shantell Hinton Hill presents her talk entitled (R)Evolutionary Resilience: Truth-telling for Radical Futures. Hinton Hill focuses on how most narratives about marginalized people perpetuate the myth of resilience as a noble attribute. She explains how revering and mythologizing resilience whilst not addressing the system that necessitates this resilience can be an act of complicity.
August 20th -Dr. Carl L. Hart, Ph.D. presents a talk entitled Viewing Addiction as a Brain Disease Promotes Social Injustice. Dr. Hart discusses the literature and data that lead him to the theory that drug addiction is not a brain disease in the way we've previously thought. He adds that the unjustified focus on addiction as a brain disease inevitably leads to social injustices such as the war on drugs.
Aug 13-Andre Perry discusses how the life of his parents would have been fundamentally and irrevocably altered if there had not been a history of redlining and devaluing homes simply because Black people were living in them. Dr. Perry speaks on how he's no different than his parents: a mother who had two children by the age of seventeen and a father who struggled with drug abuse, who lost his life in prison. The real issue lies in what Perry says so perfectly: “There is nothing wrong with Black people that ending racism can’t solve.”
August 6- Wes Moore talks about what empathy really means, especially as it comes up in his New York Times Bestseller, "The Other Wes Moore," a book that explores how the lives of two people with the same name could branch out to be so different. Moore discusses how the U.S., too, could stand to be healed by the spirit of empathy that, as he says, is “complicated, it’s hard, it’s difficult, it’s vulnerable, it’s compromising.”
July 30 - Steve Capers, Comedy Enthusiast and founder of Martha’s Vineyard Comedy Fest and Black Comedy Month discusses the history of African American humor — from the inception of “playing the dozens” to the evolution of standup comedy.
July 23 - Civil rights activist DeRay McKesson talks about how Campaign Zero emphasizes the use of research and data such as police violence reports in the effort to implement systemic change and end police violence against all marginalized people.
July 16 - Amit Taneja, Chautauqua Institution’s first-ever Chief IDEA Officer, describes his new role at Chautauqua and what that role brings to the African American Heritage House (AAHH). Ted First and Erroll Davis discuss AAHH's support of the archival research that unsurfaced the history of African Americans here at Chautauqua, as well as the commemoration ceremony for the Phillis Wheatley Cottage that memorialized this history.
July 9 - Rev. Dr. Heber Brown, founder of the Black Church Food Security Network, discusses how he transformed the unused land in front of his church into a garden that teems with fresh produce for members of his community. Dr. Brown talks about how the Black church plays a pivotal role in the health and prosperity of the Black community.
July 2nd - From Harlem to China—Paula Madison discusses the search for her maternal grandfather, chronicled in the book and documentary Finding Samuel Lowe. Madison speaks on the long, nuanced, and interconnected history of Black and Asian people in the U.S. and abroad.
