Category: Events

Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad. Demonstration NYC April 15

by Henry Lowendorf, Greater New Haven Peace Council

There is no way to peace without dramatically cutting the $700 billion Pentagon budget and ending the many wars the US started and is engaged in. STOP THE WARS AT HOME AND ABROAD!

The Trump administration, however, is proposing more war spending and all CT members of Congress voted with their colleagues to increase the Pentagon budget by $80 billion, a third more than Trump asked for. This is a recipe for more killing, more refugees, more cultural devastation and indeed economic disaster for our own country. STOP THE WARS AT HOME AND ABROAD!

Cuts to the funding of education, environment, jobs, health-care, science, civil rights, infrastructure can only be reversed when we stop funding war. Ending the internal assault on minorities, immigrants, people of Muslim faith, women, our youth – ending the mass killings – requires strong opposi-tion to militarization and warmaking. STOP THE WARS AT HOME AND ABROAD!

The No US Foreign Bases Coalition, which brought together many peace organizations (noforeignbases.org) and held a successful conference in Baltimore in January, resolved to organize a national day of demonstrations on tax day 2018. There will be demonstrations in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago and New York.

From Connecticut we want to send a large contingent to New York. We also want to subsidize transportation in particular to encourage youth to participate. Please help organize this effort. Let us know you will march and bring a crowd April 15, 2 p.m., Union Square, New York.
Greater New Haven Peace Council (203) 389-9547, [email protected]

The Future of Health Care in Connecticut: Paths to Equity and Good Health for All, April 25

Much of what influences health happens outside the doctor’s office. How can we build strong and meaningful links between the clinical care system and the communities where people live?
Wednesday, April 25, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., join the CT Health Foundation and a panel of experts to explore ways to improve health outcomes and ensure the health care system works for everyone, at the Connecticut Convention Center, 100 Columbus Blvd., Hartford. For information and to register, please contact the CT Health Foundation at (860) 724-1580, email: [email protected]. Free but space is limited so please only register once. If you register and can’t attend, please let us know so we can give your ticket to someone else.

Guest speakers include Dr. David Williams, Norman Professor of Public Health, Harvard Chan School of Public Health; Dr. Soma Stout, Vice President, Institute for Health-care Improvement; Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, Editor-in-Chief, Kaiser Health News and author of An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Businessand How You Can Take It Back.

Nonviolent Communication Workshop April 21

Nonviolent Communication is a way of communicating more effectively and compassionately based on the feelings and needs we share as human beings. It is founded on the idea that people only resort to harming themselves and others when they don’t recognize other strategies for meeting their human needs. Imre Berty, who has been teaching Nonviolent Communication for over a decade, will lead this workshop. It is open to all, but it is requested that people read the book, Nonviolent Communication – A Language of Life, before the workshop, so that we will be able to use the time together well.
The workshop is on Saturday, April 21, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the NH Friends Meetinghouse, 225 E. Grand Ave.

Please bring a bag lunch. If you need child care, please contact Mary Gorham at [email protected] by April 14 with the names and ages of your children.

Link to event: quakercloud.org/cloud/new-haven-friends-meeting/events/nonviolent-communication-workshop.

More information and to order the book: www.nonviolent communication.com/aboutnvc/4partprocess.htm.

The First Unitarian Universalist Society Welcomes You!

The First Unitarian Universalist Society of New Haven is located at 608 Whitney Ave. and hosts many programs for the New Haven community.

The New Haven Bioregional group regularly holds meetings, skillshares, potluck dinners and presentations at our meeting house. New Haven Bioregional Group maintains a lifeboat garden on our property.

ANSWER CT, a chapter of the ANSWER Coalition, regularly holds meetings and events at our meeting house. The ANSWER coalition’s mission is to stop war and racism.

The Children’s Preschool is a non-profit preschool for area children. The school has been located on our property since its founding in 1972, and we are represented on its advisory board.

The New Haven Compassionfest regularly holds meetings and vegan potlucks at our meeting house.
The New Haven/León Sister City Project has their offices in our meeting house. They engage in sustainable economic, human, and community development projects in Nicaragua.
Social Justice and Charitable Giving.

The congregation gives away its weekly collection to organizations pursuing social and environmental justice. We select a different recipient each quarter. We are donating the money collected at this quarter’s services to support Puerto Rico recovery from Hurricane Maria.

Prior recipients include: New Haven Land Trust, CT Food Bank Mobile Pantry, Common Ground High School, CT Fund for the Environment, True Colors, Friends of Haiti Edge of the Woods, Fellowship Place, Inc., SNE Planned Parenthood, Amistad Catholic Worker Hill Area Kitchen, Downtown Soup Kitchen, CT Food Bank — Kids Backpack Program, Stepping Stone Transitional Housing Program, AIDs Project New Haven.

Services are held Sundays 10:30 a.m. Child care is provided 10:15-11:30 a.m. Fellowship and refreshments follow the service. To find out more about the First Unitarian Universalist Society of New Haven, please visit our website at www.uunewhaven.org.

Rock to Rock News and High School Energy Awareness Programs

by Chris Schweitzer, New Haven/León Sister City Project

It’s time to get excited about the 10th Annual Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride. We are joining forces with Green Drinks to put on a Pint Night to benefit Rock to Rock Wednesday, March 14, 6-7:30 at Patagonia, 1 Broadway (corner of York St.), New Haven. We will have beer from Blue Point Brewery, wine, refreshments, live music from Andrew Biagiarelli, and our ever-popular raffle. Admission: $5 donation to Rock to Rock.

Rock to Rock is New Haven’s biggest Earth Day celebration. Here’s how it works: You and about a thousand of your neighbors travel by bicycle from West Rock and East Rock, with celebrations on both sides of the city. Along the way, eat tasty food, hear great music, take on environmental service projects, and explore our city’s parks and neighborhoods. Info: [email protected] or (203) 285-6147.

Climate Health and Energy Week (CHEW) is an opportunity–April 30 to May 5–for New Haven-area high schools to broaden climate change awareness and engage in concrete action to cut greenhouse gases, improve health and reduce energy use and expense. CHEW organizers are researching and developing–with educators and school administrators–a variety of program/activity options to be available to individual teachers, departments, grade levels, schools, or the entire school district. The range of options will enable educators to meet the specific needs and realities of their school. Other non-school youth and community organiz-ations can also participate.

Check out the website  www.climateweeknh.org or contact Margalie at Margalie Belizaire [email protected] or call (203) 562-1607.  Also please submit good climate education activities!

Celebrate 35 Years with the Middle East Crisis Committee March 3

by Stanley Heller, chairperson, MECC

The Middle East Crisis Committee (MECC) is in its 35th year. MECC invites you to “Struggle, Resistance and Resili-ence in Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” a fund-raising party on Saturday, March 3 at 6 p.m. at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of New Haven, 608 Whitney Ave. Learn about Mazin Qumsiyeh’s efforts in building the Palestinian Natural History Museum in Bethlehem. There will be food, music, and video; auctions and door prizes are planned. $25 suggested donation.

For the past dozen years or so our biggest efforts have involved media. We have a weekly TV show on over 30 cable stations stretching from Maine to New York City. One focus of late on TheStruggle.org is Saudi Arabia (KSA) and its war against Yemen. Another focus is of efforts around the world to remember Syria. It’s called “2nd Day of Rage for Syria.” MECC stands for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria and in support of Syrian civil society demands for ceasefire and honest elections.

‘Meditating in Troubled Times’ — A Talk by Dr. Paul R. Fleischman, March 5

by Aruna Pawashe, Lecturer, MBB and MCDB Dept., Yale

The Connecticut Vipassana is pleased to host the 4th Annual public talk by Dr. Paul R. Fleischman, MD entitled “Meditating in Troubled Times,” on Monday, March 5, at 4 p.m. It is free and open to the public and takes place at Yale Osborne Memorial Lab, Room 202, 165 Prospect St. For details and to register go to: bit.ly/YaleMeditationLecture.

Dr. Fleischman trained at Yale University and practiced psychiatry for over thirty years. He was appointed a teacher of Vipassana by S.N. Goenka. He has recently lectured at numerous universities in the U.S. as well as in many coun-tries around the world. This year at Yale, he will discuss troubled times on the minds of our students/audience and how meditation can retain its relevance, or even increase its relevance, when the world is so full of turmoil.

Black History Month Events at the Wilson Library

by Marian Huggins, New Haven Free Public Library

This year’s Black History Month theme for the library fea-tures two prominent writers: James Baldwin and Langston Hughes. Along with partners from Project Longevity, we will show the film I Am Not Your Negro, a work adapted from an unfinished James Baldwin manuscript. The screening will be held at the Wilson Branch, 303 Washington Ave., New Haven, on Saturday, Feb. 3 at 2 p.m.

James Baldwin, described as an “American Novelist and Social Critic,” unearths the hard truths about racism in America while describing his responses to the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers and Malcolm X.

Langston Hughes, whose birthday by the way is Feb. 1, was a prolific poet and social activist as well. His writing could be biting, but was usually cloaked either in humor (as in the Jesse B. Semple Stories) or softened by the hopefulness of a future when all would be accepted, like in the poem “I, Too”:

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

The Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series will feature a biography of Langston Hughes for our February meeting, Feb. 24 at noon. New readers are welcome and readers can choose whatever biography (or autobiography) written for teens and adults they’d like to read for the discussion. The Langston Hughes biography is in conjunction with our Black History Month celebration and it fits in with the cultural and social justice theme of the discussion group. The book discussion will be followed by the film Hughes’ Dream Harlem at 1:30 p.m.  Wilson Branch, New Haven Free Public Library, 303 Washington Ave., (203) 946-2228.

Teach-In Feb 24: Explore the Toughest Questions Facing the Climate Movement

by 350CT and Sierra Club

On Saturday, February 24, noon to 6 p.m. at the Ernest O. St. Jacques Auditorium, Elmwood Community Center, 1106 New Britain Ave., West Hartford (entrance via South Quaker Lane and then to Burgoyne Street) come to a Teach-In: For a Livable World! Climate Justice Now! Hear experts and activists exploring some of the toughest questions facing the climate movement. Speakers include:
Jacqueline Patterson, Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program. Coordinator & co-founder of Women of Color United since 2007. She is also a researcher and program manager, working on women‘s rights, violence against women, HIV&AIDS, racial and economic justice.
Anne L. Hendrixson, Director of Population and Development Programs at Hampshire College. She has examined the gendered and racialized ways that environmental thinkers have framed population in relation to resource scarcity, food insecurity, conflict and violence, environmental degradation and climate change.

Sean Sweeney, Director of the International Program on Labor, Climate & Environment at the Murphy Institute, City University of New York and coordinator of Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, a global network of 42 unions from 16 countries.

Martha Klein, Chapter Chair of the Sierra Club of Connecticut, and a leader in the fight to stop the use and transport by pipeline of climate-wrecking fracked gas in our state.

Alexis Rodriquez, Fairfield representative of the Connecticut Puerto Rican Agenda and an advocate of decolonization. He has been involved with hurricane relief efforts and the campaign against coal ash dumping in Penuelas.

Cynthia Jennings, environmental and civil rights attorney and a councilwoman in Hartford. She has brought the issue of environmental justice in Hartford to national attention.

Workshops include: Become a Citizen Lobbyist for the Spring 2018 Legislative Session; What Would an Independent Mass Action Strategy Look Like?; The Fight for a Green, De-Colonized Puerto Rico; Fight for Green Affordable Mass Transit; Nuclear Power is NOT Renewable!; Get Your Town to Commit to 100% Renewable This Year!

For more information: 350CT at (203) 350-3508 or email [email protected].

Sierra Club of CT 860-542-5225 or [email protected].

Commemorate the 200th Anniversary of Frederick Douglass’ Birth

Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand. It Never Did, and It Never Will.

Quinnipiac University will mark the 200th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’ birth with a series of events to honor his life and his many achievements. One of the high points will be a yearlong exhibition curated by Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute that focuses on the time Douglass spent in Ireland and his enduring relationship with that country.

Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Maryland. At the age of 20, he escaped to the north, where he quickly established himself as a talented speaker and writer.

In 1845, Douglass wrote his life story: “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Written by Himself.” To avoid being captured and returned to slavery, he traveled to Europe. He spent the first four months of his exile in Ireland, returning there three more times in 1846. Douglass described his time in Ireland as “transformative” and as “the happiest days of my life.” In 1847, he returned to America, his freedom having been “purchased” by female abolitionists.

Exhibit: Frederick Douglass Remembered.

Dates: Feb. 2, 2018, to Jan. 28, 2019
Hours: Monday through Saturday: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.;
Sunday: Noon to 5 p.m.
Main Exhibition: The Lender Special Collection Room, Arnold Bernhard Library, Mount Carmel Campus, Quinnipiac University, 275 Mount Carmel Avenue, Hamden, CT 06518

Friday, Feb. 2. Frederick Douglass in Ireland: “The Black O’Connell” (Frederick Douglass in Éirinn: An Conallach Gorm) exhibition opens to the public.

Tuesday, Feb. 6, 7-10 p.m. From Abolition to #BLM: A Conversation with Danny Glover at the Burt Kahn Court, Mount Carmel Campus. Driven by activists like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman, early abolitionist efforts became the foundation for contemporary debates over the meaning of freedom. The Black Lives Matter movement, named for the hashtag started on Twitter, is steeped in the American tradition of using free speech and social actions to further the fight for justice and equality. In a fireside-chat style program with Dr. Khalilah Brown-Dean, Glover will explore the similarities of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and its early abolitionist roots (especially Frederick Douglass) to build connections, increase dialogue and end racism.

Wednesday, Feb. 14. Happy Birthday, Frederick! Events throughout the day include special cupcakes and a chance to meet Nathan Richardson (Douglass enactor).

Tuesday, Feb. 20. “Frederick Douglass at 200.”
Memorial service to mark Frederick’s death on February 20, 1895. The service will include a selection of readings in English and Irish, accompanied by traditional Irish music and 19th-century American hymns. Light refreshments will be provided afterward. This event will take place at the Center for Religion on the Mount Carmel Campus.Thursday, February 22. Kenneth Morris and Nettie Douglass, descendants of Frederick Douglass, discuss how they are preserving his legacy. Also, a statue of Frederick Douglass at age 27 (when he visited Ireland) will be on display at the Quinnipiac University School of Law on the North Haven Campus, 370 Bassett Road, North Haven. For more information, please contact: Ann Marie Godbout, Assistant to Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute, (203) 582-6576, [email protected], http://www.qu.edu/on-campus/institutes-centers/irelands-great-hunger-institute/frederick-douglass-remembered.html.

A Fund-Raising Party for MECC March 3

by Stanley Heller, chairperson, MECC

The Middle East Crisis Committee (MECC) invites you to “Struggle, Resistance and Resilience in Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” a fund-raising party on Saturday, March 3 at 6 p.m. at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of New Haven,  608 Whitney Ave., New Haven.

Learn about Mazin Qumsiyeh’s efforts in building the Palestinian Natural History Museum in Bethlehem. There will be food, music, and video; auctions and door prizes are planned. $25 suggested donation.

MECC is in its 35th year. For the past dozen years or so our biggest efforts have involved media. We have a weekly TV show on over 30 cable stations stretching from Maine to New York City. One focus of late is Saudi Arabia (KSA) and its war against Yemen, which has been completely supported by the Obama and Trump administrations. This past year saw an attempt to use the War Powers Act to completely cut off U.S. participation in the war via House Concurrent Resolution 81. However, it was sidestepped by leaders in Congress including powerful Democratic Party Whip Steny Hoyer. We did an interview with Malachy Kilbride who with six others were arrested inside Hoyer’s office demanding in vain a meeting with Hoyer or his staff. You can see the interview by going to TheStruggle.org and clicking on the black button for our YouTube channel “struggle-videomedia.” (Incidentally, while CT Sen. Chris Murphy is admirable on the Yemen issue, Sen. Richard Blumenthal has never spoken out against the atrocious war.) “Atrocious” is no exaggeration. Reuters had a video clip of destitute people in a Yemen garbage dump, eating and drinking in the garbage amid swarming insects.

Another video of note on TheStruggle.org is of efforts around the world to remember Syria. It’s called “2nd Day of Rage for Syria.” People mistakenly think the war is over. Hundreds of thousands are under Assad siege in Idlib and Eastern Ghouta. After its brutal obliteration of Raqaa, the U.S. is using a Kurdish force to establish a permanent presence in the northeast and Turkey has a chunk of the country in the north. MECC stands for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria and in support of Syrian civil society demands for a ceasefire and honest elections.

Join us for this fund-raising event on March 3!

MLK Day, take action to finish the work King began

MLK Day, take action to finish the work King began. Call to Unity and Action. Varick Memorial AME Zion Church, 242 Dixwell Ave., New Haven. Light meal and hors d’oeuvres will follow the program. This event is part of New Haven Rising’s 2018 dues and membership drive. If you’d like to co-sponsor this event or have any questions please respond to this email or call: 203-710-1084. For more information visit the Facebook event page here.

 

 

 

Amazing Story of Mary and Eliza Freeman of Bridgeport

Hosted by CT Chapter of the National Organization for Women (CT NOW), Thursday, Jan. 11, 6:30 – 8 p.m. at the New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St.

Come to a fascinating talk about two remarkable Connec-ticut women who’ve been lost from history – Mary and Eliza Freeman – starting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 11, in the Ives Performance Area of the New Haven Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven.

Sisters and free women of color, Mary and Eliza bought and leased houses in Bridgeport in the 1800s, leading to the creation of the “Little Liberia” neighborhood. Established 20 years before Connecticut abolished slavery for good in 1848, Little Liberia was designed to give free African-Americans the opportunity to make greater social and economic progress. The two original homes Mary and Eliza purchased are the oldest remaining houses in Connecticut built by free blacks and are part of the Connecticut Freedom Trail. However, help is needed to ensure their survival. Come hear the story of these two amazing women, presented by Maisa Tisdale, president of the Mary and Eliza Freeman Center for History and Community.

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