Widespread outrage over recent instances of police violence has revealed that we may be in an unprecedented political moment: one in which people from all walks of life are re-evaluating the police, punishment, and prisons as solutions for harm. Join Mariame Kaba (No More Police: A Case for Abolition, co-authored with Andrea J. Ritchie), Derecka Purnell (Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom), and Marlon Peterson (Bird Uncaged: An Abolitionist’s Freedom Song) as they discuss their unique paths to abolition, their responses to the questions it has raised, and their visions of a future for safe, well-resourced, and thriving communities. Moderated by Hafizah Augustus Geter (The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin).

2022 is the centennial of the late Jonas Mekas, poet, filmmaker and artist, who transformed avant garde film in
the U.S. Join film writer and essayist Phillip Lopate and author and poet Charity Coleman for a discussion about Mekas’s time in NY and musician/ author Larry Simon and author John Broven (New York City Blues: Postwar Portraits from Harlem to the Village and Beyond) talking about the postwar New York City Blues scene based on interviews and personal stories. Supported by Lithuanian Culture Institute.