LAVA Center event focuses on Frederick Douglass
GREENFIELD — The LAVA Center at 324 Main St. will welcome three guests who will lead a reading and discussion of Frederick Douglass’ famous speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” to commemorate Douglass’ birth and death (both in February), as well as Black History Month, on Saturday, Feb. 28, at 2 p.m.
Marlon Carey, a Providence-based actor, storyteller, spoken word artist and educator, will serve as guest host and moderator. He’ll be joined by locals Nina Gross (poet, playwright and musician) and Nate Woodard (Greenfield High School senior, Communities That Care Coalition youth leader and co-chair of the Greenfield Human Rights Commission).
Reading Frederick Douglass Together is a program funded by Mass Humanities. Now in its 17th year, it has enabled thousands to gather in communities across the state to share and reflect on the words Douglass first spoke publicly on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, just over a decade before the Emancipation Proclamation.
This year, The LAVA Center has subtitled its event “Reading and Responding Together in Greenfield” to emphasize the community participation aspects of reading the text aloud, plus the invitation for the audience to respond that will be built into the program. The presenters will weave their own creative expressions together with the text and with the community of Greenfield, while creating spaces for those in attendance to also speak, write and share songs together.
Douglass spoke in Greenfield at Washington Hall (now the site of Veterans Mall) on Jan. 3, 1866, just two years after the ratification of the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery in the United States. The site is now recognized as a stop on an Underground Railroad walking tour that commemorates Greenfield as part of the network of anti-slavery activists who helped people escape enslavement and get to the North.
For more information, visit thelavacenter.org/events/douglass.
Connecticut River Defenders holding film screening at Greenfield Public Library
GREENFIELD — The Connecticut River Defenders invite the community to a screening of the film “A Beast Touch the Mountain: Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Fight for Appalachia” at the Greenfield Public Library on Wednesday, March 4, at 5:30 p.m. A panel discussion with Director James Mottern will follow the showing.
The film features a group of Appalachian women in Bent Mountain, Virginia, who fought for a decade for their land against a fossil fuel pipeline, which was eventually completed. The Connecticut River Defenders aspire to bring people together to share their thoughts, experiences and responses to this example of rural resistance, and examine how these might apply to situations in western Massachusetts, such as the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station and beyond. The Connecticut River Defenders oppose the pending relicensure of the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Station.
For more information, contact ctriverdefenders@gmail.com.
GCC to host online social justice discussion
GREENFIELD — Greenfield Community College invites the community to an interactive discussion, “The Struggle is Eternal: Learning from the Movement,” on Wednesday, March 4, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. via Zoom.
The discussion will explore the lives and legacies of civil rights organizer Gloria Richardson and scholar-activist Barbara Smith, centering Black women’s leadership, student activism and coalition-building across social justice movements. The program will feature historian and author Joseph Fitzgerald, and will be moderated by GCC’s Vice President of Institutional Mission, Culture and Climate Angela Campbell.
The program examines how historic struggles for civil rights, women’s civil liberties and community accountability continue to shape contemporary movements for justice and freedom. By linking historical and present-day activism, the event invites participants to reflect on their traditions of social justice engagement and to consider the responsibilities of allyship, accountability and collective action in dismantling systemic oppression.
To receive the Zoom link, RSVP at gcc.mass.edu/events/the-struggle-is-eternal-learning-from-the-movement.