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Ford Hall Forum

The Ford Hall Forum is the nation's oldest continuously operating free public lecture series. Its mission is to foster an informed and effective citizenry and to promote freedom of speech through the public presentation of lectures, debates, and discussions. Forum events illuminate the key issues facing our society by bringing to its podium knowledgeable and thought-provoking speakers. These speakers are presented in person, for free, and in settings, which facilitate frank and open debate.

http://www.fordhallforum.org/

Living in Pryde

Mon, May 4, 2026

Join the Ford Hall Forum screening of Living in Pryde in Boston's theater district at The Modern Theater on Washington St. Filmmakers and residents featured in the film will convene after the screening for a discussion with the audience.

Living in Pryde is a powerful short documentary following residents of The Pryde—New England’s first LGBTQ+ welcoming, affordable senior housing community. As LGBTQ+ rights face renewed challenges, the film highlights a generation that came of age without basic legal protections. Residents draw on a lifetime of resilience, reflecting on surviving the AIDS crisis, fighting for same-sex marriage, and coming out as transgender. Located in a former public school in Boston’s Hyde Park, The Pryde is both a refuge and a target—a place where community becomes a powerful force in the ongoing fight for civil rights and equality.

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Improbable Patriot: The Secret History of Monsieur de Beaumarchais

Tue, May 12, 2026

Improbable Patriot: The Secret History of Monsieur de Beaumarchais, the French playwright Who Saved the American Revolution, a conversation with Suffolk University historian Robert Alison and Iris De Rode.

In 1776, the playwright and inventor Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–1799) conceived an audacious plan to send aid to the American rebels. What’s more, he convinced King Louis XVI to bankroll the project and single-handedly carried it out. By war’s end, he had supplied Washington’s army with most of its weapons and powder, though he was never paid or acknowledged by the United States. To some, he was a dashing hero, a towering intellect who saved the American Revolution. To others, he was a pure rogue, a double-dealing adventurer who stopped at nothing to advance his fame and fortune. In fact, he was both, and more: an advisor to kings, an arms dealer, and an author of some of the most enduring works of the stage, including The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville. Now in paperback, Improbable Patriot introduces readers to an unrecognized power player in the Revolutionary War.

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Havi Ben-Sasson Dreifuss on the fall of the Warsaw Ghetto

Thu, Apr 16, 2026

The People’s Uprising and the Fall of the Warsaw Ghetto,
April 1942–June 1943 sheds light on the lives, choices, and
experiences of the tens of thousands of Jews who were not
part of the underground armed resistance but nonetheless
supported the famed Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. This riveting
and dramatic account focuses on the final year of the
Warsaw ghetto, from the Great Deportation in the summer
of 1942 through the suppression of the uprising in mid-1943
Drawing on powerful contemporary testimonies, diaries, and
documents—many of them previously unexplored—Havi
Ben-Sasson Dreifuss reveals how members of the broader
Jewish population struggled to survive, maintain family and
community life, and make impossible moral decisions in the
face of fear, hunger, and daily violence. Looking beyond the
fighters themselves, the book offers a story of devastation, but
also of resilience and human dignity.

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Dr. Joy Banner: From Plantation to Pollution

Thu, Feb 5, 2026

How did the legacy of plantation slavery shape today’s environmental crises? Dr. Joy Banner will trace the “plantation to pollution” through line—from sugarcane cultivation built on extractive enslaved labor to the modern fertilizer and pesticide industries that now pollute the land, air, and water of Black communities along Louisiana’s Mississippi River corridor, often called "Cancer Alley."

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Lessons In Drag: A Queer Manual for Academics, Artists, and Aunties

Mon, Dec 15, 2025

"Lessons in Drag" author Kareem Khubchandani speaks with Kris Manjapra, as they discuss the power of Drag to hold together precarious communities through uncertain times.

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Jim Fruchterman: Technology For Good

Wed, Nov 19, 2025

Fruchterman will discuss his new book, "Technology for Good: How Nonprofit Leaders are Using Software and Data to Solve Our Most Pressing Problems," with Hiawatha Bray, technology writer for The Boston Globe.

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Red Baiting Then and Now — The Danger of Fascism Today

Tue, Oct 28, 2025

In his talk, Michael Meeropol, son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg will be in conversation with Paul Solman, PBS NewsHour correspondent. They will examine the striking parallels—and crucial differences—between the Red Scare and the Trump era.

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Paul Starr on "American Contradiction: Revolution and Revenge from the 1950s to Now"

Wed, Nov 12, 2025

Paul Starr argues Americans' choices to elect Obama and Trump is no anomaly, but rather a manifestation of deep‐rooted tensions or “contradictions” in the nation’s character and institutions. Starr will be in conversation with Harvard Law School Professor Randall Kennedy.

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France as Freedom: The Paris Years of Richard Wright

Thu, Sep 11, 2025

Filmmaker Zachary James Miller discusses the life and work of author Richard Wright.

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Fannie Lou Hamer's America

Thu, Jun 12, 2025

Fannie Lou Hamer's America: An America ReFramed Special is a portrait of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer and the injustices in America that made her work essential. Working with groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Fannie Lou Hamer devoted herself to fighting for voting rights and Black political representation. Her efforts would mobilize thousands of Black people to register to vote. Through public speeches, personal interviews, and powerful songs of the fearless Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist, Fannie Lou Hamer's America: An America ReFramed Special explores and celebrates the lesser-known life of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest leaders.

After the screening, there will be a talkback with the film’s director and editor, Joy Davenport; Monica Land, executive producer and niece of Fannie Lou Hamer; and Kate Clifford Larson, bestselling author of the critically acclaimed biography Walk With Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer. The evening’s moderator is Thato R. Mwosa, an award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, playwright, and illustrator.

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