Archived Events
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A Convening: Race, Reform, and Multiracial Democracy
Agenda | Logistics The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Social Justice (CHHIRJ) will hold the Race, Reform, and Multiracial Democracy convening. This convening is the launch of the Guinier Project, which will explore the relationship among electoral system reform, racial justice, and democratic representation. The convening will take place at Harvard Law School on September 21 – 22, 2023. As a Harvard law professor, Lani Guinier was always ahead of her time. She was a civil rights lawyer with the US Department of Justice and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and she was the first Black woman to…
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Legislative Briefing: Ending Life Without Parole
PART 2 : “Ending Life Without Parole” Download the full event background flyer here. Register here: https://bit.ly/LWOPzoom Registration is now closed. VIDEO: Massachusetts has the highest percentage of people serving life without parole sentences in the nation, followed by Louisiana. As of July 26, 2021, 1,013 people in Massachusetts are serving LWOP out of less than 6,000 criminally sentenced people in DOC custody. This means that one out of every six people incarcerated in Massachusetts state prisons is foreclosed from the opportunity to ever apply for parole. Of the people serving LWOP, 600, or 59%, are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous,…
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Legislative Briefing: Reforming Parole and Medical Parole to Enhance Public Safety
Watch a recording of this event: PART 1 : “Reforming Parole and Medical Parole to Enhance Public Safety” Download the full event background flyer here. Register here: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJArcOGtpjMuG9KB4tn5xS0bjqOdsFtviaAy The parole system and the medical parole system are both mechanisms that are meant to release people from incarceration and support them in the community when they do not pose a threat to public safety. These systems should ensure that the Commonwealth’s resources are used to promote health, safety, human dignity, rehabilitation, and compassion, but both systems are underutilized and focused on punishment. Please join us for this event to learn more…
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On Harm and Healing: A Conversation with Danielle Sered and Marlon Peterson
Please join us for a conversation about reckoning with violence on the path toward healing. Speakers will consider mass incarceration, abolition, and the peoplework that is vital to realize transformative justice. Danielle Sered, Author, Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration and a Road to Repair; Executive Director, Common Justice Marlon Peterson, Author, Bird Uncaged: An Abolitionist’s Freedom Song; Media Entrepreneur Cosponsors: Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, Common Justice, Prison Studies Project, Coalition for Effective Public Safety, Transformative Justice Initiative Thank you to our contributors: Barbara Dougan, Freda Flammer, Lauren Gibbs, Randy Gioia, M. Claire Masinton, Parole…
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The Uncomfortable Truth: Film Screening & Discussion
Join us for a film screening of The Uncomfortable Truth, followed by a panel discussion with Loki Mulholland, Film Director, and Tamara Lanier, New London CT NAACP. Loki Mulholland, the son of famous civil rights activist Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, grapples with his family’s deep roots in racism as he unearths his family’s history and the truth behind their slave-owning past. Together with Luvaghn Brown, a Freedom Rider and activist, Loki explores the United States’ institutions of racism that continue to haunt our country today through his very personal journal. The Uncomfortable Truth is an unapologetic film that lays bare…
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Conviction Review in the Age of COVID-19
According to data compiled by The Sentencing Project, there are roughly as many people serving life sentences today in Massachusetts as there were sentenced people in the Commonwealth’s state prisons in total in 1970. What is required to undo decades of public policy based on racism and fear, and to instill practices and policies of mercy and healing? How should stakeholders account for the dozens of wrongful convictions in Boston, nearly all Black and brown men, and the systemic forces behind the policing and prosecution that rendered those convictions in the first place? This panel—featuring David Lewis, Chief of the…
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Human Rights, Civil Rights, and the Struggle for Racial Justice
From documenting historical incidents of mass racial violence to taking protests against police brutality to international forums, social justice lawyers have long turned to human rights law and strategies to advocate for racial justice in the United States. At the same time, US legacies of exceptionalism, isolationism and nationalism pose challenges for what is a fundamentally universalist human rights project. This event will explore how international human rights approaches are being used in conjunction with domestic civil rights advocacy to push for law and policy change in the United States. Panelists will speak about their work raising awareness of, and…
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Beloved Streets of America
As part of the Harvard Library Anti-Racism Book & Film Club, join Melvin White, founder of Beloved Streets of America, discussing the current status of this project, dedicated to revitalizing the hundreds of streets and boulevards named after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Mr. White will be joined by David Harris, managing director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, and Bob Glover, executive coach and storyteller, discussing the Institute‘s Justflix project to create video documentaries of these streets.
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It’s a Crime: Using Technical Violations to Re-Incarcerate
Tens of thousands of people are sent back to prison each year not because they have committed new crimes, but because they have committed “technical violations” while on parole. How is this adding to mass incarceration and what does this mean during a pandemic? Join our speakers with lived experience, advocacy know-how, and legal expertise as we tackle the problems and solutions in the age of COVID. This event is part of a national month of actions marking the Attica uprising and demanding Decarceration Now. Keynote: Emily NaPier Singletary and Derek Singletary, co-founders and co-executive directors of Unchained (NY). Derek…
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Decarceration and Community: COVID-19 and Beyond
This discussion, which we cosponsored with the Radcliffe Institute, focuses on people who are incarcerated and their families, exploring how systemic racism and mass criminalization threaten both incarcerated individuals and their communities. The participants considered how recent events, including the COVID-19 crisis and the police murder of George Floyd, highlight and magnify historical inequities—with deadly results. SPEAKERS: Gina Clayton-Johnson, executive director and founder, Essie Justice Group Soffiyah Elijah, executive director, Alliance of Families for Justice Andrea James, founder, Families for Justice as Healing; executive director, National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls Zach Norris, executive director, Ella…