Freedom Forums

The rhetoric of the past year’s presidential election cycle raised the specter of a divided America, the fallout and reverberations of which seem to threaten our basic democratic ideals and values. With fear and marginalization of the other on the rise, how can we rekindle our commitment to the ideal of freedom, and what does freedom in America even mean?

Poets Alexis De Veaux, internationally renowned activist and author of Warrior Poet, A Biography of Audre Lorde; Jericho Brown, associate professor of English and creative writing at Emory University; Tina Chang, the first woman Poet Laureate of Brooklyn; and Aja Monet, performer, educator and human rights advocate, will consider these questions and discuss what freedom means to them as writers, individuals and as citizens. They will share their work and that of others who have inspired them, sparking an open conversation with the audience.

This main event will be bookended by public engagement programs in four regions of New York State, held in collaboration with the Adirondack Center for Writing, Dialogue Arts Project, Herstory Writers Workshop, Just Buffalo Literary Center, Poets House, Poets in Unexpected Places, and Urban Word NYC.

Freedom Forums is presented by the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy, the primary nonprofit partner of the National Parks of New York Harbor. It is organized by Harbor Conservancy Literary Arts Advisor Debora Ott, and funded in part by Vision and Action Grants from Humanities New York and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. For further information, contact Debora Ott at [email protected]. 

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