TRANSFORMING CITIES SERIES:

Failing to apply a rubric for social impact, government-funded infrastructure has been culpable for legacies of segregating communities, spurring blight or displacement, and devastating natural environments. Daniel Balmori discusses how innovative efforts to reimagine underutilized public spaces -- including prior infrastructure follies -- have demonstrated that, deployed thoughtfully and with a lens toward equity, infrastructure improvements have the potential to positively transform the quality of life for entire communities, catalyze economic opportunities, and make environments more resilient.

TRANSFORMING CITIES SERIES:

Planners and engineers in the 50's and 60's often built freeways directly through African American communities, severing neighborhoods and dismantling small businesses in the way. Sally Bagshaw, Scott Bonjukian, John Feit, and other advocates and government leaders are now speaking out against these 70-year-old road design practices, offering solutions to restore and reconnect neighborhoods.

TRANSFORMING CITIES SERIES:

OPINION COMMENTARY:

Urban greenery can help create more resilient cities -- but only if residents are engaged in the process. Professor John Wilson, working at the intersection of sociology, environmental science and technology calls for an all-hands approach.

REPARATIONS SERIES:

It's important to appreciate slavery and the reparations debate, not merely in terms of the deprivation of African Americans, but the degree to which America has been enriched by the presence of Black people. As Harvard Kennedy School Professor Cornell William Brooks discusses, part of the problem today is that people do not know the stories of the people next to them. We should have real conversations about our history.

REPARATIONS SERIES:

On the 100th anniversary of the horrific Tulsa race massacre, Representative Regina Goodwin, a direct descendant of survivors who now represents the district in the Oklahoma legislature, offers a unique and particularly compelling case for reparations.

REPARATIONS SERIES:

No city alone has the ability or the capacity to right all the wrongs of the past. But Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza suggests that cities are leading the way across the country in tackling racial injustice and anti-Blackness, including through his city's truth-telling, reconciliation and municipal reparations process.

REPARATIONS SERIES:

Reparations are not new in this country. Forty years after stripping Japanese Americans of their homes, businesses, property and dignity, the U.S. government paid survivors $20,000 and issued a formal apology. Author Daniel James Brown explores what we can learn from the Japanese-American experience.

REPARATIONS SERIES:

OPINION COMMENTARY:

The dominant media system defines the truths of our society and has created and sustained an anti-Black narrative since 1619. While government reparations efforts unfold, business and philanthropy can help repair and transform our media system. Alicia Bell, Damaso Reyes, Joseph Torres and Collette Watson discuss the steps needed to bring about change.

As we work to ensure a more just economic recovery, business leaders, policy leaders and philanthropists all have an important role to play. Paul Salem discusses how tested programs like Year Up plays a critical role in creating an integrated talent ecosystem for young people of color to succeed.

A conversation with historian, teacher and activist, Professor Timothy Patrick McCarthy, on the importance of embracing an honest reckoning with history, battling the culture wars in schools, and liberation dreaming in order to realize our best aspirations and intentions for public education.

THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF THE BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION SERIES:

A conversation with Kimberly Teehee, Director of Government Relations for Cherokee Nation and Senior Vice President of Government Relations for Cherokee Nation Businesses.

THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF THE BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION SERIES:

The Biden administration has moved rapidly in its first 100 days to renew our government’s efforts to stem climate change. The Department of Energy and Department of Interior will both play outsized roles among the federal agencies in helping to implement Biden’s climate agenda.

THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF THE BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION SERIES:

A conversation with Shavon Arline-Bradley, Founding Principal of R.E.A.C.H. Beyond Solutions LLC, a public health, policy/advocacy, faith and executive leadership firm and Co-Founder of The Health Equity Cypher Group, a collaborative of nationally recognized health equity experts designed to expand the work of health, equity and diversity & inclusion in all sectors.

A conversation with Karen Emmons, a Professor of Social and Behavioral Science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Bisola Ojikutu, an infectious disease specialist and health equity researcher who has dedicated her career to overcoming racial and ethnic disparities in HIV and now COVID-19 — discussing how community investment can help build trust in vaccines.

ONE YEAR AFTER GEORGE FLOYD'S MURDER SERIES:

A conversation with Paul Butler, an Albert Brick Professor of Law at Georgetown University and legal analyst on MSNBC, discussing where we are as a country regarding policing and racial equality.

ONE YEAR AFTER GEORGE FLOYD'S MURDER SERIES:

A conversation with Quincy Miller, Vice Chair and President of Eastern Bank, on supporting the communities where he lives and works with a focus on equity and youth.

DISABILITY AWARENESS SERIES:

What do you picture when you think about disability? You probably envision a wheelchair user, the literal symbol of disability plastered on parking spots and bathroom doors. Kathleen Bogart discusses that disability is much broader than most people think.

DISABILITY AWARENESS SERIES:

While the ADA can be harnessed to carve out physical or digital access where it doesn’t exist, they cannot be used to change behavior from something that upends ordinary social access and norms of community. Peter Slatin discusses that without social accessibility the ADA will remain a half-measure.

DISABILITY AWARENESS SERIES:

As one of the world’s leading universities, Professor Michael Ashley Stein, co-founder and Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, discusses how Harvard has the opportunity as well as the responsibility, to lead in disability-inclusion.

It is time that our federal government earnestly seeks to devise a long-term strategy to rid this nation of racial discrimination. Peter Williams discusses how we must develop a cradle-to-grave strategy for establishing a racially tolerant and antiracist society through education and legislative and regulatory change.