This event will be live at, and live-streamed from, Raab Auditorium and the main Boston Public Library. Join by Zoom or join us in person!

Either way, please register for a ticket! We'll send you the Zoom link two days in advance, and again two hours in advance, of the lecture.



Freedom was not a concept just for white male Puritans. The right to consent to governance, the right to liberties, equal treatment under law, resistance to tyranny - these were claimed by enslaved people in the only way they could – by escaping. Award-winning historian Margaret Newell, joined by Slave Legacy History Coalition co-founder Egypt Lloyd, explores the network of Indigenous and Black people helping enslaved individuals to escape – the stories of those who fled and those who helped them, including the story of an African-American man who forged documents for both Native and African-American bondspeople to help them to freedom.

Most Americans are familiar with the history of the 19th century Underground Railroad. Formerly enslaved people wrote autobiographies and newspapers published escape accounts, and later historians interviewed participants. We know much less about the experience of Native Americans and Africans who attempted to escape the tyranny of slavery in the colonial era, whose stories often only appear as testimony in courts or in runaway advertisements.

Frederick Douglass and other 19th century fugitives escaped via stagecoach, train and steamship to the North. There, they entered thriving African American communities who assisted them. In a time before toll roads, transit, and diverse urban centers, how did people escape, where did they go, what networks existed to help them, and what challenges did they confront in maintaining freedom? What did freedom mean in an era where no free soil existed, when the bonds of slavery were being tightened by colonial administrations at the behest of slaveholders? The treaty that ended the first major Anglo-Indigenous conflict, the 1637 Pequot War, included a fugitive slave clause. As colonial cities and transportation networks grew, so did newspaper runaway ads, pass requirements, and policing of people of color.

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In 2017, ds4si designed Social Emergency Response Centers (SERCs) to help people understand the moment we’re in, and help us move from rage and despair into collective, radical action. In emergencies like hurricanes and tsunamis, emergency response centers exist to provide services like temporary housing, food, water and information. We're inviting you to join us in re-imagining response centers to take on the real and pressing social emergency that we are facing today.



Regardless of the election outcome, we remain in a Social Emergency.

Gaza continues to be bombed, the wall is being built, our neighbors are being gentrified out of Boston, immigrants are violently targeted, and more.

On November 8th, we invite you to the ds4si Design Gym, as we create space to engage in these core issues through collective healing, making, cooking, and plotting. Let us witness to each other, eat together, reconnect with our breath and bodies, foster understanding and solidarity, learn from each other, and begin to imagine forms of radical action.

Radiant Jasmin is a multidisciplinary poet, singer/songwriter, harpist, dancer, jeweler, and painter. Like a chef, she selects each art ingredient to bring out the best in the others. She was born and raised in Boston into a Black family of performing and visual artists.

Performances & Exhibits include: The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, VerBaLizAtiOn, Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam, Stone Soup Poetry, the Massachusetts State House and AAMARP. She is a recipient of Certificates of Special Recognition from the Governors of Massachusetts and Rhode Island for her Service in the Arts.

She is a channel in her Music and Poetry creation. Songs and poems come to her while dreaming, cooking and painting. They mirror her values of self-love, happiness and empowerment. She mixes funk, jazz, hip-hop, gospel, African, house music and more. Her dreamy harp music is very soothing and calming for a society that's in high stress mode. She released her first album of spoken word poetry, “Breaking It Down”, in 2014 and her 2nd album, “PERSISTENCE” in 2023.

Radiant Jasmin builds art programs, teaching performance and visual art to children, teens and adults using fun ways to link art with preventative healthcare, literacy, science, math and Black History for a balanced educational experience and to facilitate healing from trauma.

One Night in Atlantis brings to life the fictional universe
of My Blood The Ink, a full cast audio drama about old gods, forgotten lands and
ancient vendettas. It’s a tale about a young man’s journey to find himself
through epic adventures and heart-racing romances that weave him into a
tapestry of experiences beyond his wildest imagination.

Join GenUnity for a panel on self-advocacy in a complex health care system. Panelists Nneka Hall, Angela Guerra, and Heidi Lee will be in conversation with our moderator, Jazmine Richardson, to discuss the challenges of advocating for yourself, as well as tools that can help combat those challenges.

The panel will be on Wednesday, November 13, 6-8 PM, at the Roxbury Innovation Center (2300 Washington St 2nd floor, Boston, MA 02119). Light refreshments will be served from 6-6:30 PM, with the panel starting at 6:30.

Join The Theater Offensive and Boston Public Library for an EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK screening of the new play, SHAPE SHIFTER: A PLAY IN MOMENTS, by Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi. Shape Shifter is presented in partnership with Long Wharf Theatre and Breaking the Binary Theatre as part of the 5th Anniversary of the Black Trans Women At The Center virtual play festival, premiering Monday, November 18th at Coolidge Corner Theatre. This program is part of The Theater Offensive’s new series entitled, Queering The Screen, which will showcase cinematic masterpieces focused on narratives of QTPOC experience.

Based in TTO’s Queer Republic Programming and in Coolidge Corners Signature Programming -- QUEERING THE SCREEN is a vital part of TTO’s next lifecycle and mission, presenting liberating art by, for, and about queer and trans people of color that transcends artistic boundaries, celebrates cultural abundance, and dismantles oppression. In partnership with The Coolidge Corner Theatre, The Theater Offensive seeks to display queer media, focusing primarily on explicit representation of Queer & Trans characters and communities in cinema, theatrical production recordings, and media performance. The themes of these films will include and revolve around The Theater Offensive’s Queer Liberatory Aesthetics, as the core of these aesthetics in queer art are life-affirming. Through this series and workshops accompanying we will analyze the contested relationships between spectator and text, identity and commodity, realism and fantasy, activism and entertainment, desire and politics.

Building Real Black Utopias: Solidarity Economics & Prefigurative Politics

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with leading scholar Stacey Sutton on "Building Real Black Utopias: Solidarity Economics & Prefigurative Politics." This event will explore the transformative possibilities of creating community-based economic models that challenge traditional capitalist structures and center Black liberation and collective well-being.

Brick Island Studios Fall Opening: A Celebration of Local Art and Community
From fiber arts to healing practices to affordable books, the Brick Island Studios Fall Opening offers something for everyone. Wander through a variety of creative spaces, meet local artists, and discover their unique inspirations and techniques.

Event Highlights
* Meet the Artists: Connect with artists from a range of disciplines, including mixed media, fiber arts, and design.
* Gallery Showcase: View featured works from the studio artists in our onsite gallery.
* Free Workshop: Join Print Ain't Dead at 5 p.m. for a hands-on zine/collage-making workshop.
* Refreshments: Enjoy light snacks and beverages as you explore.

Join us for an intimate conversation on what makes a great adaptation, we’ll explore how our favorite stories—from comics to novels—become movies and series that either capture their essence or get lost in the commercial sauce. In anticipation of Netflix’s adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ classic “One Hundred Years of Solitude”

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