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Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

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Boston Resistance Then & Now

Diane Dwyer Old North Church
Date and time
Wednesday, April 22, 2026
In-person:
Event starts at 7pm, projections begin at 8pm

Inspired by historic New England town halls, this series convenes conversations in the very buildings where Bostonians have gathered for generations to wrestle with questions of liberty, justice, and power. Each event pairs leading historians with contemporary organizers to explore how today’s most urgent challenges have clear historical precedent—and how that perspective can inspire meaningful action.

The panelists will examine the forces of oppression and resistance shaping 18th-century Boston to trace how those dynamics continue to resonate, and to discuss how we can learn from the past to take action today.

Throughout the evening, you will have the opportunity to contribute reflections and responses in real time. These collective insights will shape a culminating, community-authored statement—projected onto the exterior of Old North Church as a powerful closing moment, transforming individual voices into a shared public declaration.

Diane Dwyer smiles in a blue and red illuminated room
Diane Dwyer (she/her) is a Boston-based installation artist and experience designer dedicated to creating interpretive, inclusive, and imaginative environments. In 2025 she founded the Silence Dogood Project, which uses site-specific large-scale projections to connect Boston’s revolutionary past with today’s struggles for liberty.
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Carol Rose is the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. A lawyer and journalist, Carol has spent her career working for and writing about human rights and civil liberties, both in the United States and abroad including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Japan, Sri Lanka, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Northern Ireland, and Vietnam. Prior to assuming her position at the helm of the Massachusetts ACLU in January 2003, she was an attorney at the Boston law firm of Hill & Barlow, where she specialized in First Amendment and media law, intellectual property, civil rights, and international human rights law. While in private practice, Carol had the honor of serving as co-chair of Women in Communications Law of the ABA Forum on Communications Law, as a Vice Chair of the Human Rights committee of the ABA Individual Rights and Responsibilities section, and on the editorial board of the ABAs *Human Rights* magazine.
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Rahsaan Hall is President and CEO of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, where he leads efforts to break down racial and social barriers that fuel economic inequities. A seasoned civil rights attorney and ordained AME minister, Rahsaan brings a thoughtful blend of legal expertise and ethical leadership to his work.
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Kyera Singleton is the Executive Director of the Royall House and Slave Quarters. She is also a PhD Candidate at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in the Department of American Culture. For the 2021-2022 academic year, Kyera Singleton is an American Democracy Fellow, in the Charles Warren Center, at Harvard University. She has held prestigious academic fellowships from the Beinecke Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Emory University’s James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, and the American Association of University Women (AAUW).
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**Jane Kamensky** is Professor of History at Harvard University and Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She is a historian of early America, the Atlantic world, and the age of revolutions, with particular interests in the histories of family, culture, and everyday life.
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