The opening program will include music, previews of some of the sessions, and words from the organizers

In this session, participants will have an opportunity to view multiple short films from Self-Evident Education. This will be an interactive film screening with opportunities for audience members to discuss the films with each other. Each of the Self-Evident films provide viewers with the chance to consider how the past impacts the present. If we do not fully understand our past, we can never create the just future that we desire.

Khalif Neville is the son of Charles Neville, a member of the phenomenal Neville Brothers. Khalif is a brilliant musician and filmmaker. He has been instrumental in elevating the films that Self-Evident Education has produced.

He will be presenting a ‘VR pop up’ featuring the first of its kind 4th Dimensional Art, which is formatted for VR and incorporates multiple artistic disciplines from music, and 3d design, to storytelling and filmmaking. He tried to write a poetic description but it quickly started sounding like computer code looks so… This is 4th dimensional art, as in, it exists in a linear circle. If you want to see and hear what that means, come through!

Bayeté Ross Smith is a multidisciplinary artist, visual journalist, filmmaker and education worker, working at the intersection of photography, film & video, visual journalism, 3D objects and new media. He is Columbia Law School’s inaugural Artist-In-Residence, a Presidential Leadership Scholar, a TED Resident, a Creative Capital Awardee, an Art For Justice Fund Fellow, a BPMPlus Grantee, a POV NY Times embedded mediamaker and CatchLight Global Fellow.

In this session, Bayeté will discuss his work using Virtual Reality technology to tell important stories of our nation’s past. He will also discuss his experience collaborating with different communities internationally to produce different chapters of the same project and what he learned about communication across cultural differences as well as our shared experience as people. He will focus on his recent experience working on a collaborative project with communities in Colombia, Ethiopia and Harlem NY as well as work that laid the groundwork for collaboration in South Africa, and Ukraine.

In western Massachusetts, some historical organizations have been focused on unearthing the Black history of their communities for years; others have turned to this more recently. All face a high degree of difficulty in researching histories of enslavement and freedom across the small towns of rural western Massachusetts. How can avocational researchers help uncover stories of enslavement and freedom? What sources reveal this difficult history? How can we locate and connect stories that cross the boundaries of individual towns and the records they generate? And how can we think beyond the identification of enslaved residents, and enslavers, to tell broader stories about how a community’s economy and culture was inextricably entwined with the commerce of slavery?

Dr. Ousmane Power-Greene and others will discuss the work that has been done and the work that remains to be done in documenting the African-American history of the Connecticut River Valley.

Based on a short story, poem or haiku the participants will write, they choose which part of this story to “popup”. The Artist will demonstrate all the skills needed for this workshop. No experience is necessary.

Nina is a founding member of Kindred Creative Residence and Agro-Forest, created in collaboration with artists, scholars, and activists engaged in social justice, anti-racism, and regenerative agriculture. The vision of Kindred is to create an intentional community around the shared vision of equity, land stewardship, reparations, and healing.

Nina will discuss this project and work collaboratively with participants to consider how the principles of Kindred can be applied in their own communities.

During this session, Massachusetts public school leaders, Dr. Brian Reilly and Dr. Marisa Mendonsa will share resources and actions taken by school districts to become antiracist. Through partnership and collaboration with school stakeholders including staff, students and community members, Dr. Reilly and Dr. Mendonsa will provide first hand accounts of how they worked through potential equity pauses to create equity plans that did not just live on paper, but rather were lifted from the pages of the plan and embedded in real actionable outcomes that moved districts forward.

Walk the African-American history trail in Florence and see Sojourner Truth’s house, abolitionist sites, and the site of the 19th-century utopian community in Florence. The tour will explain what brought a progressive, innovative group of people to Florence in the 19th century and how they influenced Florence’s development.

The Witness Stones Project™ is an non-profit, educational initiative whose mission is to restore the history and honor the humanity of the enslaved individuals who helped build our communities.

The Project provides local archival research, professional teacher development, a classroom curriculum, and public programming to help students discover and chronicle the local history of slavery. The final component of the work in each community is the placement of Witness Stone Memorials™ that honor enslaved individuals where they lived, worked, or worshiped.

Participants will hear about the work of the Project and have an opportunity to consider how similar work could be done in their own communities.

Khalif Neville is the son of Charles Neville, a member of the phenomenal Neville Brothers. Khalif is a brilliant musician and filmmaker. He has been instrumental in elevating the films that Self-Evident Education has produced.

He will be presenting a ‘VR pop up’ featuring the first of its kind 4th Dimensional Art, which is formatted for VR and incorporates multiple artistic disciplines from music, and 3d design, to storytelling and filmmaking. He tried to write a poetic description but it quickly started sounding like computer code looks so… This is 4th dimensional art, as in, it exists in a linear circle. If you want to see and hear what that means, come through! linear circle. If you want to see and hear what that means, come through!

Khalif Neville is the son of Charles Neville, a member of the phenomenal Neville Brothers. Khalif is a brilliant musician and filmmaker. He has been instrumental in elevating the films that Self-Evident Education has produced.

He will be presenting a ‘VR pop up’ featuring the first of its kind 4th Dimensional Art, which is formatted for VR and incorporates multiple artistic disciplines from music, and 3d design, to storytelling and filmmaking. He tried to write a poetic description but it quickly started sounding like computer code looks so… This is 4th dimensional art, as in, it exists in a linear circle. If you want to see and hear what that means, come through! linear circle. If you want to see and hear what that means, come through!

In this session, participants will have an opportunity to view multiple short films from Self-Evident Education. This will be an interactive film screening with opportunities for audience members to discuss the films with each other. Each of the Self-Evident films provide viewers with the chance to consider how the past impacts the present. If we do not fully understand our past, we can never create the just future that we desire.

High school history teacher Henry Frechette will discuss a project he worked on with his students in which the students created short films to teach about unknown or commonly misunderstood parts of American history.

Some of the student filmmakers will present their work and discuss the impact this project had on their learning.

Malia Lazu is the director of the Urban Labs Project at the Massachusetts Institute of technology, the author of From Intention to Impact: A Practical Guide to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and the newly named Managing Editor for the Bay State Banner’s business section. Malia will speak about the ways that movements for social change must always understand the past while they simultaneously envision the future, working to maintain hard-won progress while also looking to make positive changes in the present and the future.

Akrobatik (note: this video contains swear words) will present an interactive lecture around Hip-Hop music and culture, and its vital necessity in curriculums at all levels of education. The lecture and interspersed musical performance will be followed up by a no-holds-barred Q&A session, with all group members encouraged to participate.

Public muralist Rochelle Shicoff has been involved in many powerful public art projects. Locally, the Hestia Mural, is an example of her work. She is in the midst of creating a mural that will be painted in Florence and will tell important parts of Florence’s past, present, and future. Join her to hear about this exciting work and learn how you can be involved.

The opening program will include music, previews of some of the sessions, and words from the organizers

Akrobatik (note: this video contains swear words) will present an interactive lecture around Hip-Hop music and culture, and its vital necessity in curriculums at all levels of education. The lecture and interspersed musical performance will be followed up by a no-holds-barred Q&A session, with all group members encouraged to participate.

Khalif Neville is the son of Charles Neville, a member of the phenomenal Neville Brothers. Khalif is a brilliant musician and filmmaker. He has been instrumental in elevating the films that Self-Evident Education has produced.

He will be presenting a ‘VR pop up’ featuring the first of its kind 4th Dimensional Art, which is formatted for VR and incorporates multiple artistic disciplines from music, and 3d design, to storytelling and filmmaking. He tried to write a poetic description but it quickly started sounding like computer code looks so… This is 4th dimensional art, as in, it exists in a linear circle. If you want to see and hear what that means, come through!

Milan Clark, Ousmane Power-Greene and Malia Lazu will present their work and thinking about the state of American democracy and the threat of facism to the promise of a multiracial democracy. Their discussion will focus on the ways that protecting voting rights and engaging in direct action can help to fight against the rising tide of facism in our nation and the world. They will actively engage the audience in this conversation in the hopes of generating ideas for how we can build communities that protect democracy as they look to build just futures.

In this session, participants will have an opportunity to view multiple short films from Self-Evident Education. This will be an interactive film screening with opportunities for audience members to discuss the films with each other. Each of the Self-Evident films provide viewers with the chance to consider how the past impacts the present. If we do not fully understand our past, we can never create the just future that we desire.

Anxiety is a normal biological response to being overwhelmed by the accelerated change we are experiencing related to climate, technology, globalization, demographic change, ethnonationalism, and more (john a. powell). Those anxieties can deepen polarization, which shows up in our communities and schools. In this workshop, we frame and explore tensions across differences that are present in our schools as we seek to find ways for all students to feel a sense of belonging. We will focus on ways to find shared values, create connections through stories, and bridge across different identities and belief systems that center both mattering and belonging for all.

Walk the African-American history trail in Florence and see Sojourner Truth’s house, abolitionist sites, and the site of the 19th-century utopian community in Florence. The tour will explain what brought a progressive, innovative group of people to Florence in the 19th century and how they influenced Florence’s development.

Tricia Rose is an accessible and engaging communicator. She inspires hope, a sense of community, and encourages reflection and dialogue on uncomfortable issues without sugar-coating the facts.

Her keynote address will speak to many of the themes explored in her new book, "Metaracism: How Systemic Racism Devastates Black Lives—and How We Break Free".

The Northampton High School Wind Ensemble will perform the works of Black American composers Florence Price, Katajh Copley, and James Reese Europe. Their concert will also consist of student speakers who will share their thoughts with the audience about the significance of the music they will be playing.

Khalif Neville is the son of Charles Neville, a member of the phenomenal Neville Brothers. Khalif is a brilliant musician and filmmaker. He has been instrumental in elevating the films that Self-Evident Education has produced.

He will be presenting a ‘VR pop up’ featuring the first of its kind 4th Dimensional Art, which is formatted for VR and incorporates multiple artistic disciplines from music, and 3d design, to storytelling and filmmaking. He tried to write a poetic description but it quickly started sounding like computer code looks so… This is 4th dimensional art, as in, it exists in a linear circle. If you want to see and hear what that means, come through!

This roundtable will discuss the work being done in Northampton and elsewhere to consider and enact programs of reparations to address the histories and legacies of systemic racism affecting people of African descent. Commissioners will report on the work of the Northampton Reparations Commission. This is a great opportunity for you to learn what is happening in our community regarding this critical issue.

Participants will learn strategies for addressing whiteness through literature instruction based on strategies in the presenter's book, Letting Go of Literary Whiteness: Antiracist Literature Instruction for White Students. The strategy to be demonstrated is teaching a key race concept, here colorblindness, and using it to build racial literacy in students who will then be asked to use this knowledge to analyze a key race-based scene in literature (A Raisin in the Sun).

In this session, participants will have an opportunity to view multiple short films from Self-Evident Education. This will be an interactive film screening with opportunities for audience members to discuss the films with each other. Each of the Self-Evident films provide viewers with the chance to consider how the past impacts the present. If we do not fully understand our past, we can never create the just future that we desire.

Khalif Neville is the son of Charles Neville, a member of the phenomenal Neville Brothers. Khalif is a brilliant musician and filmmaker. He has been instrumental in elevating the films that Self-Evident Education has produced.

He will be presenting a ‘VR pop up’ featuring the first of its kind 4th Dimensional Art, which is formatted for VR and incorporates multiple artistic disciplines from music, and 3d design, to storytelling and filmmaking. He tried to write a poetic description but it quickly started sounding like computer code looks so… This is 4th dimensional art, as in, it exists in a linear circle. If you want to see and hear what that means, come through!

Nina is a founding member of Kindred Creative Residence and Agro-Forest, created in collaboration with artists, scholars, and activists engaged in social justice, anti-racism, and regenerative agriculture. The vision of Kindred is to create an intentional community around the shared vision of equity, land stewardship, reparations, and healing.

Nina will discuss this project and work collaboratively with participants to consider how the principles of Kindred can be applied in their own communities.

Ecologists now talk about "assemblages" rather than "communities" when they're talking about the ways in which various groups of life-forms take shape and change over time; they don't want to assume in advance that the elements of a group are related to one another in community-oriented, greater-good-oriented ways. I want to suggest that recognizing the difference between assemblages and communities can improve our understanding of the kinds of things that need to happen to transform assemblages into communities, and also that there is a value to assemblages, to looser, less intentional ways of interacting in groups.

In this session, participants will have an opportunity to view multiple short films from Self-Evident Education. This will be an interactive film screening with opportunities for audience members to discuss the films with each other. Each of the Self-Evident films provide viewers with the chance to consider how the past impacts the present. If we do not fully understand our past, we can never create the just future that we desire.

Walk the African-American history trail in Florence and see Sojourner Truth’s house, abolitionist sites, and the site of the 19th-century utopian community in Florence. The tour will explain what brought a progressive, innovative group of people to Florence in the 19th century and how they influenced Florence’s development.

A conversation among scholars about "If You Cross This Boundary, We All Die" and the lives and legacies of Ellen and William Craft, with Kellie Carter Jackson, Ilyon Woo, and Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor.

The Power of Truths Arts and Education Festival presents “Know the Ledge: Hiphop History Live, part ii” – part theater, part dance, part history lesson, part Hiphop music. Join Akrobatik, Dutch ReBelle, Marcia Gomes, Father Hotep, Khalif Neville, Adrienne Mack-Davis, Jeff Jean-Phillippe, and more for an artistic tour de force combining art, history, and storytelling, to help us center joy and envision a just future. The show will be followed by a headline performance from the Perceptionists.

“Know the Ledge: Hiphop History Live, part ii”, will be preceded by the public premiere of the short film, “Freedom’s Battle at Christiana”, about the inspiring Christiana Resistance; if you do not know this history, you should. If you are familiar with Self-Evident’s work, know that this will be their most powerful film yet!