A fellow HICO member asked if I would put this on my blogs. Easy answer.
Subject: Invite from Mass Humanities
Dear Community Partners
I am proud to invite your Organization to participate in joining us for a Communal reading and Celebration by the people of Lynn, of Frederick Douglass' fiery 1852 Fourth of July address, "The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro" (abridged, Douglass took 3 hours)
The Event will be held on Sunday, July 3rd at 6:30 in Lynn. We are working on confirming the location, but we promise it will be spectacular!
The event, and more information about it is pasted below, is free and open to all – and all are invited to participate. It is sponsored by a growing list of local civic and educational organizations, including the City of Lynn, Mass Humanities, Salem Stage College, The Lynn Museum, The Highlands Coalition, and more.
As you probably know, the famous abolitionist orator lived in Lynn during the years 1841-1845, when he first lectured around New England.
This is a first for Lynn, but there have been several of these events around the state in previous years with great success, and I think you will enjoy participating in the public reading of Douglass' magnificent oratory.
Just think; everyone with a paragraph of the speech to read; A child from your Program reading next to a City Official, next to a Clergy member, next to a Neighbor. There will be paragraphs translated into Spanish, Russian, Khmer, Haitian and more.
I hope that your Participation or Sponsorship of the event will encourage you and members of your Organization and the Community it serves to not only attend, but take on reading a paragraph themselves.
It is easy to participate as an organization –
to collaborate in this event, your group would agree to:
1) Have it's name listed as a Sponsor on the Flyer
2) Send out the Publicity and have at least one person attend the reading
Attached please find a "save the date" flyer.
I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely, Wendy Joseph, Leslie Greenberg, Bob Connolly
Coordinators "Fredrick Douglass in Lynn"
More about Reading Frederick Douglass events:
Reading Frederick Douglass is an initiative of Mass Humanities, Community Change, and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School.
In the 1852 Fourth of July address, Douglass famously asked,
"Fellow citizens, why am I called upon to speak here to-day?
What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?
Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?"
“Reading Frederick Douglass" is a multi-year statewide initiative to mark the sesquicentennial of the Civil War during the presidency of Barack Obama, the first African-American President of the United States.
Our experience is that, in order to happen and be a success, this event needs participation from a range of public and civic organizations. Once a variety of people gather in one place, very little else in the end is needed to make it happen and to make it a civic success.
We do this at the Statehouse in Boston, and we have been organizing these events in various places around the state for a couple of years to great local acclaim.
Here is a link to a radio report about our Springfield reading in 2010
If you would like to know more about this event, please explore the "Reading Frederick Douglass" project Web pages on the Mass Humanities Website.
Sincerely,
Wendy Joseph
Leslie Greenberg
Bob Connolly
781-842-1480
617-680-1707
No comments:
Post a Comment