After a busy April, the learning and community connection opportunities continue in May! Please join COAR online for our last discussion meeting of the year, and/or in-person at three events --
The Stories of Us
TONIGHT! Tuesday, April 25, 6:45pm: Join COAR, Be Well Be Here, and the Carlisle DEICAC at the Concord Main Library for a collaborative storytelling event. Listen to stories from neighbors that you may not have heard before, and share your own story. Register through the library, or see the flyer below for more details.
Far East Deep South
Thursday, May 4, 6pm: Join us at the Fenn School for a free community film screening and discussion with the filmmakers! (More details below)
COAR Monthly Discussion Meeting
Monday, May 8, 7-8:30pm: On Zoom - our last discussion meeting of the school year - topic is Racial Disparities in Advanced Placement Courses. More details below.
Theater Evening Out!
Come see The Color Purple with COAR. Please email COAR if you'd like to join our group.
1. Donate items to the Emergency Shelter for Families at the Best Western through the Concord-Carlisle Community Chest. There are still many items on the list to support our new Concord families. Please consider donating what you can and spreading the word.
2. If you didn't make it to the Stand Up for Ellen event, consider watching the recording (it starts at minute 21) to learn more about the life of Ellen Garrison and her abolitionist efforts in Concord and beyond.
Tuesday, April 25, 5-6:15pm Mass. Historical Society: From Segregation to Suspension: School Discipline in Boston Schools & the Rise of Mass Incarceration
In American cities throughout the North and South, discriminatory discipline emerged or increased during desegregation, creating a “pushout” phenomenon in which the repeated use of suspension compelled students to drop out of school. This paper examines these changes within Boston’s school during court-ordered desegregation by tracing how city and school officials criminalized Black youth through the discretionary issuance of suspension, deployment of police into schools, and use of suspension statistics to rationalize punitive education and law enforcement reforms. It situates these changes within Boston’s changing economy to illuminate how school criminalization and punishment contributed to the rise of mass incarceration.
Tuesday, April 25, 7-8pm Concord Museum: Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape
Lauret Savoy, the David B. Truman Professor of Environmental Studies & Geology at Mount Holyoke College and a woman of African American, Euro-American, and Indigenous ancestry, joins us for a conversation on her award-winning book Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape. Through personal journeys and historical inquiry, Professor Savoy explores how America’s still unfolding history and ideas of “race” have marked its people and the land.
Join us for an exciting new program series that honors the contributions of Black women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. In this program, meet Tarsha Ward, Ph.D and learn about her work studying genetics and heart disease. From 1:00 to 1:30pm, hear Dr. Tarsha Ward share her personal journey as a young Black woman in science, and ask her questions about why she finds science cool and exciting. Then, try some hands-on activities inspired by different areas of Dr. Tarsha Ward’s work, to include learning the parts of the heart and modeling the genetics of heart disease.
Tuesday, May 9, 7-8:30pm Discovery Museum: A Family Revealed: From Slavery to Hope
In an evening of engaging music and conversation with the audience, two descendants of a Confederate enslaver, one Black and one white, share their story and discuss what it was like to discover each other’s deeply held feelings, pain, and hope. Presenting are folk singer and social activist Reggie Harris and longtime educator Wallis Wickham Raemer.
This glorious musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning features a Tony Award-winning score that includes jazz, ragtime, gospel, African music and blues. The Color Purple is a story of hope, an intensely moving American classic, and a triumphant theatrical treasure.
Tuesday, May 16, 7-8pm CFPL: From Exclusion to Inclusion? History of Chinese in New England: 1798-Present
This talk will retrace the footsteps of Chinese in the New England area over the past two centuries - from the first known Chinese immigrant to the recent election of Michelle Wu as the first Asian and female mayor of Boston.
Now through May, 2023 DeCordova: Melvin Edwards: Brighter Days($) Brighter Days brings forth conversations on Black history and identity, and evokes Edwards’ optimistic view of our shared future.
